On the BA now just an update on the UBP

[Kenlorz]

"A test for this cruise only" is a joke. It will be implemented. Not really a bad idea, IMO. How may people have reservations and don't show?

 

I agree the idea overall is a good one. And I think it would work great on a ship that has a reasonable sized theater for the size of the ship. I just have some real concerns about the BA class ships with an 800 seat theater for a 4,000 pax ship. I think the theater's too small on this particular class of ship to have a FCFS system. Before, it may have been frustrating for true freestylers (those with no reservations) to show up shortly before a show and hope for a seat. While those with reservations could show up a short time before the show and know they were guaranteed a seat. Now, if this is implemented, every single pax on the ship has to hope for the chance for a seat and no one has a guarantee to get one. I hope my hesitations are wrong, but based on this poster stating that the theater opened 45 minutes before the show and the seats were filled in 10 minutes, I think people will line up earlier and earlier to try to get a good seat. How could this benefit Freestylers or Planners in the long run? Hope I'm just being a nervous nelly with no need for concerns... but now I must admit to be concerned about our May cruise.

Edited March 7, 2015 by Kenlorz

[mking8288]

Much obliged & thanks, Karen, for the updated clarification - perhaps they had few reservations for some of the shows & decided to do a test run. so ;) The BA only ship internet plan by the MB was (is) a trial and still good, and, is a welcoming offer - higher prices equal no or fewer users, lower/better prices meant more prospect & users taking the bait = revenue.

 

Show reservations also blocked us out of some dining time last year as we had a small group of 6 but this time, it won't matter as we will go "wing" it or free style. Despite the theater's small size, still took us 10 minutes to make our way to the exits & even more time to the AFT dining room, almost late for our group reservation.

 

The free iConcierge is nice except it won't allow you to cancel a booked show or dining reservations as one must call, perhaps they are running into fair # of no-shows among the "smarter" cruisers with a better feel of how to cruise - and, NCL trying to reconstruct the box. Reminds me of the airline's experimentation with how to best board pax in coach class & up front and FT's war on overhead bin space. Sure to get some more "comments" & " feedbacks" by Monday, if not sooner from those onboard now on their last Sea Day.

Edited March 7, 2015 by mking8288

[hawkeyetlse]

As far as drink prices, again, prices go up. Cruise prices have remained steady over the past 20 years. They make their money on drinks and casino. You're on vacation - have a drink and if you can't afford the increase, then stay home :D

Kind of a strange way for a travel agent to express themselves, but I'm going to assume you don't talk to your clients that way. The issue is not the price increase. All reasonably functional adults understand that prices go up. It's the way the increases have been put in place, with zero announcements (Did travel agents receive notification that the automatic bar gratuity was going up this week to 18%, the highest in the industry? We passengers certainly did not.), reduced menus, confused staff, and inconsistent pricing on board. I am very glad I'm not cruising this week/month, and that is really a sad thing to say.

[karensletsgotravel]

Wow about the shows. Thanks for posting. We sail on Breakaway in 3 weeks.

 

Make sure you read my updates on this topic Bill. :)

[karensletsgotravel]

Kind of a strange way for a travel agent to express themselves, but I'm going to assume you don't talk to your clients that way. The issue is not the price increase. All reasonably functional adults understand that prices go up. It's the way the increases have been put in place, with zero announcements (Did travel agents receive notification that the automatic bar gratuity was going up this week to 18%, the highest in the industry? We passengers certainly did not.), reduced menus, confused staff, and inconsistent pricing on board. I am very glad I'm not cruising this week/month, and that is really a sad thing to say.

 

Notice the smile at the end of my post. I was being sarcastic and off the clock :)

[karensletsgotravel]

Much obliged & thanks, Karen, for the updated clarification - perhaps they had few reservations for some of the shows & decided to do a test run. so ;) The BA only ship internet plan by the MB was (is) a trial and still good, and, is a welcoming offer - higher prices equal no or fewer users, lower/better prices meant more prospect & users taking the bait = revenue.

 

Show reservations also blocked us out of some dining time last year as we had a small group of 6 but this time, it won't matter as we will go "wing" it or free style. Despite the theater's small size, still took us 10 minutes to make our way to the exits & even more time to the AFT dining room, almost late for our group reservation.

 

The free iConcierge is nice except it won't allow you to cancel a booked show or dining reservations as one must call, perhaps they are running into fair # of no-shows among the "smarter" cruisers with a better feel of how to cruise - and, NCL trying to reconstruct the box. Reminds me of the airline's experimentation with how to best board pax in coach class & up front and FT's war on overhead bin space. Sure to get some more "comments" & " feedbacks" by Monday, if not sooner from those onboard now on their last Sea Day.

 

You're welcome. ;)

[karensletsgotravel]

Thanks Karen for getting to the bottom of the reservations posting. I hope that this "Test Run" doesn't indicate a future change to this way of attending shows. I much prefer the reservations option. I'm guessing the test has something to do with the amount of people who complain that the need for reservations is counterintuitive to the "Freestyle" concept. I'd be interested to know the results of this trial run.

 

I will be keeping an eye on it as well. From my personal experience and long list of cruises under my belt, in the early years, it was a free for all and fight for a good seat at the shows. With reservations, at least you have a seat and if you're on time, can get a pretty decent one. I'd much rather have a reservation and a plan, versus being disappointed at show time. I dont know, I really don't think there's a right or wrong way to do this; it's personal preference. I like the reservation idea though.

[aquarianne11]

I will be keeping an eye on it as well. From my personal experience and long list of cruises under my belt, in the early years, it was a free for all and fight for a good seat at the shows. With reservations, at least you have a seat and if you're on time, can get a pretty decent one. I'd much rather have a reservation and a plan, versus being disappointed at show time. I dont know, I really don't think there's a right or wrong way to do this; it's personal preference. I like the reservation idea though.

 

Thank you. I'll be watching for the updates.

 

I'm hoping that this is just a temporary thing. I think the reservation system worked pretty well for the Breakaway (and Getaway). I would not want to wait in line 1 hour before the show to make sure I can watch a show. That's a big waste of time on a cruise ship when you can do so many other things.

 

Then people will start reserving seats for 10 people and line cutting like they do in Disney World. Wow, that would be chaos! :eek:

Edited March 7, 2015 by aquarianne11

[hawkeyetlse]

IF you work with a good travel agent (such as myself) you would've been notified about the increase in service charges. We found out that they were being increased from $12 per day to $12.95 per day back in the middle of February.

NCL sent e-mails around that time to everyone with upcoming bookings (whether they booked direct or through a TA). Here on Cruise Critic we learned about it on February 11. :)

[SissasMomE]

NCL sent e-mails around that time to everyone with upcoming bookings (whether they booked direct or through a TA). Here on Cruise Critic we learned about it on February 11. :)

 

Yep. Ours came directly from NCL.

[bangzoom6877]

Yep. Ours came directly from NCL.

 

We got an email from ncl as well.

[tiger-91]

And i'd like to add to my other posts about the increase in service charges and drink prices...

 

IF you work with a good travel agent (such as myself) you would've been notified about the increase in service charges. We found out that they were being increased from $12 per day to $12.95 per day back in the middle of February. I immediately emailed my clients and notified them of this. Norwegian was giving anyone who was already booked prior to the increase of March 1st, the opportunity to pre-pay their gratuities before their sailing. So, if you weren't notified by your travel agent, then shame on them and if you didn't take advantage of pre-paying your gratuities, then don't complain when you get onboard and they've gone up. Just sayin... :cool:

 

As far as drink prices, again, prices go up. Cruise prices have remained steady over the past 20 years. They make their money on drinks and casino. You're on vacation - have a drink and if you can't afford the increase, then stay home :D

 

I went to my local pub last weekend (i don't go out much) and was shocked that I'm paying $5.50 for a Corona. Same price as a ship. Go figure!!

 

NCL notified me via e-mail and reminded me I could prepay in February at the lower rate. I didn't read anything in this thread about complaints about service charges. What I read was a comment about the drink gratuity being 18% now. I think it was 15%.

[SissasMomE]

"A test for this cruise only" is a joke. It will be implemented. Not really a bad idea, IMO. How may people have reservations and don't show?

 

and now we are into the second cruise. So much for "this cruise only" :rolleyes:

[MsJ]

Hi, We just got off the Breakaway Sunday. We booked it only 2 weeks before as our planned RV trip to the Keys was a no go as we could not get the truck and RV out of our yard due to mountains of snow:) Anyway we were not offered a way to book any shows as we were last year on Breakaway. We were in our very first suite and a Spa Haven suite so we had a butler. When I asked him about the section set aside for Haven passengers he told me to just show up at the theater and we would be seated by a Haven person there. He also said there were no reservations needed. Having never done Haven before I didnt think anything of it but I didnt see anyone was collecting tickets from anyone. Butler said to show up 20 mins before show. The show...Burn the Floor was changed from 7:00 to 6:30...so we showed up at 6:10 and no Haven person there so we just took seats. It was kind of a bummer that the show didnt start until 7:10 so it was a long wait. Which would have been ok but we were subjected to very strange black and white slow motion clips of people from the 50' and 60's dancing and one that looked like a re-creation of the minuet bustles and men in wigs etc. But the music was LOUD music that had nothing to do with the 50's 60's or minuet. It was really weird and the picture was blurry and every time it seemed like it was going to stop the whole thing was looped around again. But the show was awesome so it was worth it to wait.

Edited March 10, 2015 by MsJ

[detroitlions]

I agree the idea overall is a good one. And I think it would work great on a ship that has a reasonable sized theater for the size of the ship. I just have some real concerns about the BA class ships with an 800 seat theater for a 4,000 pax ship. I think the theater's too small on this particular class of ship to have a FCFS system. Before, it may have been frustrating for true freestylers (those with no reservations) to show up shortly before a show and hope for a seat. While those with reservations could show up a short time before the show and know they were guaranteed a seat. Now, if this is implemented, every single pax on the ship has to hope for the chance for a seat and no one has a guarantee to get one. I hope my hesitations are wrong, but based on this poster stating that the theater opened 45 minutes before the show and the seats were filled in 10 minutes, I think people will line up earlier and earlier to try to get a good seat. How could this benefit Freestylers or Planners in the long run? Hope I'm just being a nervous nelly with no need for concerns... but now I must admit to be concerned about our May cruise.

I am not a fan of reservations everyone is not doing everthing at the same time. Making reservations is not Freestyle cruising.

[BendORcruiser]

I am not a fan of reservations everyone is not doing everthing at the same time. Making reservations is not Freestyle cruising.

 

I agree. We stopped going to shows when they implemented the reservation system. We like to be more spontaneous when we are on vacation than that.

[Jaime47]

And i'd like to add to my other posts about the increase in service charges and drink prices...

 

IF you work with a good travel agent (such as myself) you would've been notified about the increase in service charges. We found out that they were being increased from $12 per day to $12.95 per day back in the middle of February. I immediately emailed my clients and notified them of this. Norwegian was giving anyone who was already booked prior to the increase of March 1st, the opportunity to pre-pay their gratuities before their sailing. So, if you weren't notified by your travel agent, then shame on them and if you didn't take advantage of pre-paying your gratuities, then don't complain when you get onboard and they've gone up. Just sayin... :cool:

 

As far as drink prices, again, prices go up. Cruise prices have remained steady over the past 20 years. They make their money on drinks and casino. You're on vacation - have a drink and if you can't afford the increase, then stay home :D

 

I went to my local pub last weekend (i don't go out much) and was shocked that I'm paying $5.50 for a Corona. Same price as a ship. Go figure!!

 

As far as gratuities...yes we were told about the 12 to 12:95 increase but were not told about the increase of 7 % on the cost of a drink and gratuity on that drink increasing from 15% to 18% ...and im betting that some people would be glad to STAY HOME if NCL would refund their money ! Just saying

[tonythewop]

I was on the breakaway last week with reservations to both main theatre shows confirmed 2 months ago. At the first show Burn the Floor they asked if we had reservations before entering the theatre but not verifying just taking our word for it. At the second show Rock of Ages they decided with no notice whatsoever that it was OPEN SEATING. Then hell broke out as guests with reservations arrived to a full theatre. There were many upset guests including ourselves. We confronted Julie the cruise director who basically tried to squirm her way out of it by saying we should have received a message indicating the change and that there are 2 more shows. IMHO this is not how you treat your guests who planned their dinners and activities around these reservations. In the end we had a great time, great weather, great seas and a great crew but the higher ups screwed up the reservation change. Personally I think Norwegian prefers you show up early to the theatre so that they sell more over priced drinks while you wait for the show to start.[emoji6]

[PelicanBill]

Now that we know a second week is continuing this change, I just think NCL is handling it terribly. It should have been done farther ahead with clear notice on the web site, so that we don't show up with reservations and then have to adjust.

 

Personally I can adjust... but I also looked over dinner times and show times very carefully and now there is at least one night in which I think my dinner will prevent me from getting to the show early enough. Rock of Ages has only two nights and the early show is too early for us to have dinner late so we have to make one of two shows. I kind of liked having a reservation.

[mking8288]

I At ....Burn the Floor they asked if we had reservations ... but not verifying ... Rock of Ages they decided with no notice whatsoever that it was OPEN SEATING. ... guests with reservations arrived to a full theatre. ... Julie the cruise director ... saying we should have received a message indicating the change and that there are 2 more shows ... In the end we had a great time ... higher ups screwed up the reservation change. Personally I think Norwegian prefers you show up early to the theatre so that they sell more over priced drinks while you wait ...

 

Breakaway issues for now: we like to be :eek: surprised, somtimes, but not always :D Open seating or by reservations, whichever way NCL wanted to change is fine by us - BUT, communicate, inform & notify and not just via social media or forums. Without going into ancient NCL cruise stories, it's not the first time nor the last time ship crews tried their best to "fix" corporate (referred to as "Miami" HQ) decisions made. That's unacceptable but nothing much can be done, huh. I do expect the appropriate NCL dept. to address this matter, fix the discrepancies - it is not a big deal to some, but yes to others - and its the right thing to notify/inform/email, etc.

Our 3/22 Roll Call is growing & newcomers unfamiliar with NCL's new era of "quasi"-FreeStyle concept are booked for the shows with dinner plans around it. If we're to leave this Sunday & print out the eDocs with the attachment, it is still showing reservations for shows as booked & confirmed. There is no email notifications about any changes nor automatically cancellations of the ones booked - YET- , which can be easily done with a few DBMS command lines in their system for BA bookings and it would free up our blocked times on the ship's calendar blocks to plan dining, etc. Tada - no surprises. NCL reserved the rights to (blah, blah, blah) and I won't get into all that. But for the sake of goodwills & customer services, they can and should alert us - before the surprise welcoming notice.

Now, if I can find that concierge contact info as it is supposed to be our perk ... which I knew better ... for some "assistance" to sort this out before next Sunday. It would be nice but we'll likely do it the Norwegian way & kowtow by winging it. :mad: Is this going to ruin our cruise, not at all but looking as this as sort of monkey circus, we can ROTFL and can definitely see some upset pax. Will wait when this Sunday's group sail away & post any updates here.

With the "free" UBP giveaway scored by some, not sure if NCL really want folks to arrive extra early & start ordering extras, unless it's coupled with selling those Instant Wins.

Life is short - have a good laugh or two & chill out ... (most of the time, anyway)

[SAILPRO]

And i'd like to add to my other posts about the increase in service charges and drink prices...

 

IF you work with a good travel agent (such as myself) you would've been notified about the increase in service charges. We found out that they were being increased from $12 per day to $12.95 per day back in the middle of February. I immediately emailed my clients and notified them of this. Norwegian was giving anyone who was already booked prior to the increase of March 1st, the opportunity to pre-pay their gratuities before their sailing. So, if you weren't notified by your travel agent, then shame on them and if you didn't take advantage of pre-paying your gratuities, then don't complain when you get onboard and they've gone up. Just sayin... :cool:

 

As far as drink prices, again, prices go up. Cruise prices have remained steady over the past 20 years. They make their money on drinks and casino. You're on vacation - have a drink and if you can't afford the increase, then stay home :D

 

I went to my local pub last weekend (i don't go out much) and was shocked that I'm paying $5.50 for a Corona. Same price as a ship. Go figure!!

 

Nowadays there aren't too many good travel agents like yourself.

Once you're booked, good luck. Some don't even repsonse to your phone/email. Like previous poster said, you get different answers for the same question. :(

[SAILPRO]

Breakaway issues for now: we like to be :eek: surprised, somtimes, but not always :D Open seating or by reservations, whichever way NCL wanted to change is fine by us - BUT, communicate, inform & notify and not just via social media or forums. Without going into ancient NCL cruise stories, it's not the first time nor the last time ship crews tried their best to "fix" corporate (referred to as "Miami" HQ) decisions made. That's unacceptable but nothing much can be done, huh. I do expect the appropriate NCL dept. to address this matter, fix the discrepancies - it is not a big deal to some, but yes to others - and its the right thing to notify/inform/email, etc.

Our 3/22 Roll Call is growing & newcomers unfamiliar with NCL's new era of "quasi"-FreeStyle concept are booked for the shows with dinner plans around it. If we're to leave this Sunday & print out the eDocs with the attachment, it is still showing reservations for shows as booked & confirmed. There is no email notifications about any changes nor automatically cancellations of the ones booked - YET- , which can be easily done with a few DBMS command lines in their system for BA bookings and it would free up our blocked times on the ship's calendar blocks to plan dining, etc. Tada - no surprises. NCL reserved the rights to (blah, blah, blah) and I won't get into all that. But for the sake of goodwills & customer services, they can and should alert us - before the surprise welcoming notice.

Now, if I can find that concierge contact info as it is supposed to be our perk ... which I knew better ... for some "assistance" to sort this out before next Sunday. It would be nice but we'll likely do it the Norwegian way & kowtow by winging it. :mad: Is this going to ruin our cruise, not at all but looking as this as sort of monkey circus, we can ROTFL and can definitely see some upset pax. Will wait when this Sunday's group sail away & post any updates here.

With the "free" UBP giveaway scored by some, not sure if NCL really want folks to arrive extra early & start ordering extras, unless it's coupled with selling those Instant Wins.

Life is short - have a good laugh or two & chill out ... (most of the time, anyway)

 

Like!

Please tell them to get their act together! Since you're going to inform/update lots of CC when you come back. :(