Excursions help

[heather0773]

NCL website shows you excursions that are offered and what cruises go there.

After you book a cruise, you can go into your reservation and pick what excursions you want to do per port.

My question is this:

1.Why within minutes of looking at the excursions offered on NCL website and booking cruise, not all excursions are listed to pick from?

2. When we call the NCL excursion hotline, agent says that the excursion could be sold out OR that the excursion might not be posted yet.  We are going on our cruise at the end of April.

3.  Why does the number of cruises available under my reservations vary each day.  Sometimes there are 101 , some days 23, some days 73 and today 31.

4.  When will ALL excursions be listed?  I don't want to book an excursion and then my excursion Ive been waiting for pops up.

5.  We are supposed to get a $50 credit per port per excursion.  When booking online- it does not take this off.

[mjkacmom]

You only get the credit after you have taken the excursion.

[shof515]

Contracts with the vendor can cause a bunch of issues, this might be why an excursion might disappear

[hladygirl]

What ports are you stopping at. A lot of times it is cheaper and better to book private excursions. We used to only use ncl excursions but now rarely do.

[heather0773]

5 minutes ago, hladygirl said:

What ports are you stopping at. A lot of times it is cheaper and better to book private excursions. We used to only use ncl excursions but now rarely do.

Cozumel

Costa Maya

Harvest Caye

Roatan Bay Islands

[hladygirl]

Just now, heather0773 said:

Cozumel

Costa Maya

Harvest Caye

Roatan Bay Islands

In Cozumel I would highly recommend Nachi Cocum. It is a day resort with a pool, swim up bar and palapa on the beach. All inclusive of food and drinks. Was only $55pp for the day. Not a large place with toys but a great quiet day with very few people compared to other places. You just get off the ship. Walk through the shopping area to taxi area. Tons of taxis waiting. 20 minute ride.about $17 dollar ride each way for up to 4 people. There is also a similar place in costa maya. Have not been there but gets great reviews. I believe it is called plya Mia.

 

 

[Shidah]

Since you have the excursion credit, if you call to book them instead of online, you don’t have to pay up front.  They will calculate the credit, and have you pay on the cruise.  If you have already paid, then you will just get a credit on the ship.

[TPgal]

I found that when on the NCL site if I did a filter for just one port at a time the results were more consistent.    But some ports don't have many offerings.  Our stop in Roatan only lists 11 excursions and Harvest Caye only had 5 if you include the beach cabana.   Obviously, we're on a different cruise and the offerings may vary but some ports don't have much.

As for booking outside NCL - that is entirely your choice, but you won't get the excursion credit and you need to be clear on the policies about the getting back to the ship on time or transported to the next port.  We aren't doing any private providers on our next cruise but that's because we found the things we like via NCL and other cabins in our party didn't want to "risk" the non-NCL providers or miss out on the discount.

[hladygirl]

4 minutes ago, TPgal said:

I found that when on the NCL site if I did a filter for just one port at a time the results were more consistent.    But some ports don't have many offerings.  Our stop in Roatan only lists 11 excursions and Harvest Caye only had 5 if you include the beach cabana.   Obviously, we're on a different cruise and the offerings may vary but some ports don't have much.

As for booking outside NCL - that is entirely your choice, but you won't get the excursion credit and you need to be clear on the policies about the getting back to the ship on time or transported to the next port.  We aren't doing any private providers on our next cruise but that's because we found the things we like via NCL and other cabins in our party didn't want to "risk" the non-NCL providers or miss out on the discount.

I forgot they had the excursion credit. We never choose that because the ship excursions are so expensive to start. Some islands we do stick with the ship excursions but most we do on our own now. Never had a problem getting back to the ship on time. These tour companies rely on the cruisers to be happy with their service to survive so they make sure to get back on time. Of course you need to check them out on cruise critic and trip advisor.

[casofilia]

When you have booked an excursion at any port you will only see that excursion for that port AND any others you could book at that port.  If you have booked a half day excursion you will find that and any other you could do on the other half day.

 

Phone the Shorex Desk in Miami and RESERVE your shorex.  The cost, should be less any Platinum Discount, will appear on your folio first night for ALL shorex.  (If the PD is not there see the Shorex desk on board.

 

On the day you do the shorex the $50 or $100 will be credited to your folio overnight to.  The sums are per cabin remember and you can get double by having Free at Sea and Distinctive Cruises.

 

Remember they are MAXIMA, if you find shorex where the cost is less that those figures you only get the actual cost refunded.

[OrcaGirl]

7 minutes ago, casofilia said:

When you have booked an excursion at any port you will only see that excursion for that port AND any others you could book at that port.  If you have booked a half day excursion you will find that and any other you could do on the other half day.

 

Interesting, I didn't realize that was intentional -- I actually reported it as a bug. From past cruises on other lines, I'm used to being able to book a shore excursion, and then continue to check back occasionally to see if anything new/different got added that might tempt me to change my mind and switch.

[casofilia]

To see what is being offered at any port after you have booked an excursion there you would have to look on NCL.com WITHOUT logging in to your account.

[don't-use-real-name]

In other words - you have logged into your account and have selected and paid for a shore excursion at one of the ports.

Thus all the other excursions at that port are now mute because you can only take one excursion at a time -

it might be possible to take another as long the times don't overlap but for simplicity NCL has determined that you are done

making any more selections.

 

You could cancel and book another more desirable SX but to do this you would have to go to the NCL site without logging

in on your account and then call NCL for the change.

 

Some SX are limited in space and you would have to standby for an opening. There are so may seats on this ride and

that is it.

Other large group tours may be able to add more buses guides etc. if sold out.

At the beginning and toward the end of the cruise season not all SX are available with a full compliment of features.

 

Book the best alternative if you can not book your first choice and then standby checking frequently for the opening

that you need. Don't give up easily - visit the SX desk on board the ship and find out if NCL is accepting standbys

for what appears to be a sold out SX.

 

In a Suite or Haven have your Concierge or Butler help you with your requests. 

 

 

[OrcaGirl]

On 1/14/2019 at 9:24 PM, don't-use-real-name said:

In other words - you have logged into your account and have selected and paid for a shore excursion at one of the ports.

Thus all the other excursions at that port are now mute because you can only take one excursion at a time -

it might be possible to take another as long the times don't overlap but for simplicity NCL has determined that you are done

making any more selections.

. 

 

 

 

I heard back from NCL website support, and they say this isn't intentional -- we should be able to see all shore excursions for each port even after booking one. They said they're looking into it.

[heather0773]

11 hours ago, OrcaGirl said:

 

I heard back from NCL website support, and they say this isn't intentional -- we should be able to see all shore excursions for each port even after booking one. They said they're looking into it.

Its very frustrating.  I have called Excursion support about 6 times now.. They tell me something different each time.  The last one told me that its done intentional so you dont overbook.  I hope the info you got is correct..

 

[Hotspring]

On ‎1‎/‎24‎/‎2019 at 7:33 PM, OrcaGirl said:

 

I heard back from NCL website support, and they say this isn't intentional -- we should be able to see all shore excursions for each port even after booking one. They said they're looking into it.

I certainly hoped they messed up with their answer.    NCL is helping us not overbook our excursions if we cannot clearly make multiple overlapping excursions at the same time, thusly wasting your money and denying other cruisers to book the excursion slot.    What we do is book excursions we like, then cancel them and move them into our favorites.  As we get closer to cruising we settle on what we prefer, particularly those that are going to overlap and book them, looking forward to our one port a day excursion credits.

[OrcaGirl]

12 hours ago, Hotspring said:

I certainly hoped they messed up with their answer.    NCL is helping us not overbook our excursions if we cannot clearly make multiple overlapping excursions at the same time, thusly wasting your money and denying other cruisers to book the excursion slot.    What we do is book excursions we like, then cancel them and move them into our favorites.  As we get closer to cruising we settle on what we prefer, particularly those that are going to overlap and book them, looking forward to our one port a day excursion credits.

 

Every other cruise line I've ever sailed on has figured out how to show passengers the full list of available excursions without allowing guests to overbook, usually by greying out the 'add to cart' button for anything with a conflicting time to something already booked. Seems to me that standard shopping cart UX functionality would be a lot easier for NCL on the backend (and less frustrating for passengers) compared to having to process cancellations via the phone.

[Nola26]

On 1/14/2019 at 7:18 PM, hladygirl said:

What ports are you stopping at. A lot of times it is cheaper and better to book private excursions. We used to only use ncl excursions but now rarely do.

OP has $50 excursion credit 

 

Call NCL to book your excursions, you will not be charged. Once you board the ship you will be charged full price for all excursions and those tickets will be waiting for you in the cabin. After you take each excursion a $50 credit will post to your account. You can make changes after booking, even onboard. 

 

There are some wonderful NCL excursions in the ports OP listed:

Roatan - Maya Key, South Shore zipline,  West Bay(tour, shop, suspension bridges, beach)

Cozumel - Passion Island 

Costa Maya - ATV ride, Salsa & Salsa, waterpark

Harvest Caye - Pedal board was unique and fun, lots of $29-69 options

 

Have a blast, you've  booked a great initinerary