For Loyalists/Cheerleaders What is likely your breaking point?

[cruiser1955a]

I look at the current “Getaway” situation, if I was treated that way, It would be my last NCL Cruise. Until it happens to me, I’ll stick with them.

A great majority of complaints I read about NCL, or any cruise line, are about things that are “subjective”. Food, entertainment, friendliness of staff, noise in cabin, chair hogs, etc. You are responsible for your own happiness. Don’t sweat the small stuff, especially on vacation.

[Barb Nahoumi]

We have  reasons for sticking with NCL.

 

1.  They "invented" Freestyle, and do it very well.  

 

2.   The MDR is open for lunch on embarkation day, and they have "welcome back" cold drinks when you return to the ship after 

        excursions.  When we cruised RCL, they didn't do these things.

 

3.  We are able to cruise out of New York or Boston, without incurring extra expenses of flights or hotel stays.  That is a huge 

      savings for us.

 

4.  Little things do mean a lot.

 

What would make us quit NCL?

 

1. Having to CLEAN our own cabin,  cook our own food, and do our own dishes, while still  paying a DSC.

 

2. Being charged for a deck chair or to use the pool.

 

Yes, I'm being a wiseguy.

 

 

 

[Georgia_Peaches]

Ok, I may have found it.  NCL's untimely announcement that they will shorten the Getaway's TA from 12 nights to 10 may be my breaking point.  While I'm not personally impacted by the change, I am certainly outraged for those who are impacted.  We have...no had (I just cancelled), an 11 night Greek Isles for June of 2020 on Getaway.  But I'm not willing to risk the expense of this dream vacation on whether or not NCL will actually honor the published itinerary.  NCL will continue to mistreat loyal customers until it packs a punch to the bottom line.  For now, NCL might be ok for bouncing around the Caribbean, but I'm not prepared to risk it beyond that.  Too many other more reliable lines out there.  Sorry NCL, I tried.

[DZcreature]

9 minutes ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

Ok, I may have found it.  NCL's untimely announcement that they will shorten the Getaway's TA from 12 nights to 10 may be my breaking point.  While I'm not personally impacted by the change, I am certainly outraged for those who are impacted.  We have...no had (I just cancelled), an 11 night Greek Isles for June of 2020 on Getaway.  But I'm not willing to risk the expense of this dream vacation on whether or not NCL will actually honor the published itinerary.  NCL will continue to mistreat loyal customers until it packs a punch to the bottom line.  For now, NCL might be ok for bouncing around the Caribbean, but I'm not prepared to risk it beyond that.  Too many other more reliable lines out there.  Sorry NCL, I tried.

 

I feel bad for the people on this trip, especially because of the last minute timing. This close to the sail date NCL should absolutely pay for hotel rooms for people who do not want to, or can not change their flights at the last minute. People are expecting 12 nights of accommodations. This is different than just missing a port.

 

Also, for a lot of the cruisers on Getaway, this isn't just a quick flight home from Florida where most cruisers are familiar with the hotels and airports. It would definitely be more stressful for me to make arrangements for coming home from Europe or finding a hotel.

 

I accept the contract when I cruise, and have extra money set aside for the unexpected, but the NCL needs to think about customer service, and at least assist in finding accommodations. They need to think about customer service.

 

 

[mugtech]

We took 10 of our first 11 cruises on NCL and do enjoy the platinum plus perks.  We now cruise the line that will give us the most for our money.  We don't drink alcohol, so the drink packages mean nothing to us, we always give away the two bottles of loyalty wine.  Since 2016 we have found that other lines have the itineraries we want at the price we want to pay.  We were very interested in the new cruises that Sprint is doing to South Africa and in the Indian Ocean and similar ones by other ships in the following years.  The prices are out of sight for these cruises, perhaps in the future larger ships will be used and the prices could be more reasonable.  Next year I will be going trans Pacific from Vancouver to Japan to Singapore on RCCL, also taking a RCCL cruise from Hong Kong to 3 stops in the Philippines on the way to Singapore.  No such cruises are available next year on NCL.

[ray98]

What is my breaking point?  The day I get back and did not have a good time and a decent value for my money.  Things such as a mint on a pillow and a towel animal no longer hold any value for me even though I thought it was a nich touch on the first couple of cruises, after nearly 2 dozen not so much.

[spanishguy1970]

5 hours ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

Ok, I may have found it.  NCL's untimely announcement that they will shorten the Getaway's TA from 12 nights to 10 may be my breaking point.  While I'm not personally impacted by the change, I am certainly outraged for those who are impacted.  We have...no had (I just cancelled), an 11 night Greek Isles for June of 2020 on Getaway.  But I'm not willing to risk the expense of this dream vacation on whether or not NCL will actually honor the published itinerary.  NCL will continue to mistreat loyal customers until it packs a punch to the bottom line.  For now, NCL might be ok for bouncing around the Caribbean, but I'm not prepared to risk it beyond that.  Too many other more reliable lines out there.  Sorry NCL, I tried.

I have said it before, NCL is lacking in customer appreciation, loyalty towards their frequent travelers, As i can see with the Getaway, there are a lot of Platinum plus customers who just said enough is enough. I am glad that in some way NCL is coming around and beginning to appease to their customers. We have a 19 day cruise in October on the Getaway and this makes me nervous.

Edited April 20, 2019 by spanishguy1970

[lanceholt]

6 hours ago, cruiser1955a said:

I look at the current “Getaway” situation, if I was treated that way, It would be my last NCL Cruise. Until it happens to me, I’ll stick with them.

A great majority of complaints I read about NCL, or any cruise line, are about things that are “subjective”. Food, entertainment, friendliness of staff, noise in cabin, chair hogs, etc. You are responsible for your own happiness. Don’t sweat the small stuff, especially on vacation.

THANK YOU....any day on a cruise is better than a day at work!!

 

[luv2kroooz]

1 hour ago, lanceholt said:

THANK YOU....any day on a cruise is better than a day at work!!

 

Cute theory. Reality? Not always true.

[newmexicoNita]

14 hours ago, blcruising said:

Cute theory. Reality? Not always true.

But let's face it: that is true most of the time and a lot of people are way to picky about what they expect from any adventure. Those complaining about the Getaway situation have every right to be upset. Some of the other issues I just will never understand. I prefer to look at the overall picture and not a couple little issues like choc on my pillow or towel animals. This is just me and how I look at life. It doesn't mean everyone agrees. 

[tallnthensome]

14 hours ago, blcruising said:

Cute theory. Reality? Not always true.

Maybe if you work for Willy Wonka and groom unicorns ........

[calmpets]

On 4/20/2019 at 9:44 AM, Georgia_Peaches said:

But I'm not willing to risk the expense of this dream vacation on whether or not NCL will actually honor the published itinerary.  NCL will continue to mistreat loyal customers until it packs a punch to the bottom line.

This. In the past couple of years, I've had NCL make arbitrary changes to my itineraries four times, which sounds like I sail all the time, but in reality I sail once per year. The first was when I was booked on a 10-day roundtrip Canada cruise out of NY, which was changed to a one-way cruise NY to Quebec. We opted to cancel (unlike the Getaway TA, this cruise was outside of cancellation penalty), and they would not even allow us to apply the whopping $50 credit offered (we were booked in a suite) to another existing reservation, of which we had two. The second, third, and fourth changes were all for the same cruise, if you can imagine, which I took just last month. We booked eight rooms on a 7 night western Caribbean out of Tampa, and the ship was later chartered. We switched dates to later in March, and they later decided to swap Harvest Caye for Belize City. Then, two weeks after that, they reinstated the Harvest Caye stop, but reordered the ports. Since I was making arrangements for all 15 people, the three modifications to the same itinerary were especially galling. But to make matters worse, I discovered the changes weeks in advance of when NCL actually notified me, and when I called to check on the status of the cruise, I was flagrantly lied to all three times and told that the itinerary would be sailing as booked. To be fair, perhaps the agents I spoke to were truly ignorant of the upcoming changes, but that doesn't make the misinformation any more acceptable.

 

Long story short, I love the shipboard experience, but they are making it harder to ignore the greed and incompetence taking place shoreside, so any future sailings I look at will be on different lines. Which is unfortunate, but the only choice left me is to vote with my vacation dollars, since they don't seem likely to change their ways, unless there is a big shakeup at the management level.

[luv2kroooz]

6 hours ago, newmexicoNita said:

But let's face it: that is true most of the time and a lot of people are way to picky about what they expect from any adventure. Those complaining about the Getaway situation have every right to be upset. Some of the other issues I just will never understand. I prefer to look at the overall picture and not a couple little issues like choc on my pillow or towel animals. This is just me and how I look at life. It doesn't mean everyone agrees. 

Agreed. Many better days at sea than poor. Just maybe not the best time to make that quote about a day at sea is better  and I know you did not make that quote. Lots of people have plans now up in the air. I feel so badly for those on getaway. We did the Jade TA last year to Normandy and D-Day beaches. It was amazing, a once in a lifetime opportunity. I hope they have the opportunity to get back there some day. 

[newmexicoNita]

32 minutes ago, blcruising said:

Agreed. Many better days at sea than poor. Just maybe not the best time to make that quote about a day at sea is better  and I know you did not make that quote. Lots of people have plans now up in the air. I feel so badly for those on getaway. We did the Jade TA last year to Normandy and D-Day beaches. It was amazing, a once in a lifetime opportunity. I hope they have the opportunity to get back there some day. 

I too feel bad for all of them. It is hard to understand, for any of us what is happening with all these changes. I understand when weather or national emergencies create problems, but sometimes it appears these changes have no rhyme or reason and it certainly isn't just NCL> 

[Budget Queen]

On 4/20/2019 at 9:44 AM, Georgia_Peaches said:

Ok, I may have found it.  NCL's untimely announcement that they will shorten the Getaway's TA from 12 nights to 10 may be my breaking point.  While I'm not personally impacted by the change, I am certainly outraged for those who are impacted.  We have...no had (I just cancelled), an 11 night Greek Isles for June of 2020 on Getaway.  But I'm not willing to risk the expense of this dream vacation on whether or not NCL will actually honor the published itinerary.  NCL will continue to mistreat loyal customers until it packs a punch to the bottom line.  For now, NCL might be ok for bouncing around the Caribbean, but I'm not prepared to risk it beyond that.  Too many other more reliable lines out there.  Sorry NCL, I tried.

Good luck with the naive thinking that is is ONLY going to happen on NCL.   You-  know-  it will not happen to any other line-  in the future?     

 

Yeah-   NCL had a slow day and pulled one of their cruises out of a hat and figured on some "fun"  and made this decision?????

 

This whole thread has torpedoed in another direction.     Time to close the post.   

[KeithJenner]

Further to my post last week, I've just got off the Breakaway and had a great time. On a couple of occasions, we had to wait maybe five to ten minutes for a drink, as we turned up at the bar at the same time as a few other people, but usually it was fairly instant.

 

Food was excellent and staff were friendly. As is usual on the big ships they didn't have as much time to chat as on the smaller ones (which is one of the reasons we prefer the small ships).

 

We had some OBC and used it to buy the SDP. That left $100 still to spend, and we struggled to do it. Most of that $00 went on tips in the restaurants, but we ended up buying a few other bits (coffee etc) to end up with a final bill of $5.

 

We also booked another cruise over Christmas. We assumed it would be too expensive but were pleasantly pleased with the price.

 

For us, we are further away from our breaking point than we were six months ago.

 

We did speak to a few people who had issues though. Those people who were using the pool bar complained about long waits for drinks (as I would expect), and some other people had specific issues. We are clearly very lucky.

[mugtech]

This is my breaking point.  I am a platinum plus who will not be sailing with NCL in 2019 or 2020.  I am selling my cruise next certificates for $100 each.  One expires in November 2019, the other in November 2020.  They can be used as a $250 down payment on a future cruise or can be used towards a cruise already booked before final payment provided a cruise next has not already been used on said cruise.

[JamieLogical]

I felt like I might be approaching my breaking point back in January when our 11-Day Encore Inaugural Transatlantic from Southampton to Miami with a stop in the Azores was changed to a 9-Day from Southampton to NYC with no stops. The idea of such a northerly route in November did not appeal to us at all. Plus info on pricing discounts was slow in coming. Ultimately, the price reductions were very significant, but we still opted to cancel. We had planned to take two weeks off of work for the trip and the associated travel expenses were high. So, instead we determined we'd take two 7-day cruises including our first sailing on MSC (remember, we were feeling a bit jaded about NCL at this point).

 

However, since booking our sailing on the MSC Seaside, we have experienced their horrendous customer service. Any communication with them seems to just get lost down a black hole and nothing ever gets resolved. It's a wonder anyone ever successfully manages to make it on board one of their ships when just booking is this much of a hassle. So instead of reaching our breaking point with NCL, we have now reached our breaking point with MSC. We are canceling our September sailing with them and going on the Breakaway instead.

[lanceholt]

As long as we get off the ship happy and relaxed, we will keep choosing NCL.  We have two upcoming cruises and look forward to both of them.

 

[All-ready2cruise]

I'm not at my breaking point with NCL, however, if something like the changes NCL has made to the TA so soon prior to the sailing date were to occur, it could very well have a negative impact on how I feel/deal with NCL in the future.  I feel very sad for those on the GA TA and feel NCL has handled this incident very poorly. IMO, it shouldn't have felt like "pulling teeth" just to receive some kind of compensation. I hope those on this cruise can find some enjoyment on their journey. 

 

As a solo cruiser, I've explored some of the other cruise lines to get a feel for how they treat our specific group and found that NCL does a good-great job of offering us the best products.  I was booked on the Encore Inaugural too and was disappointed with the changes to the intinerary; however, the changes were made in plenty of time for us to cancel and rebook another cruise.  For those who chose to stay on the cruise, they were offered a discount.  

 

So, I'll stick around unless/until NCL does something totally unacceptable to me and negatively impacts my ability to enjoy my vacation. 

 

Cheers

 

 

[vwlmember]

17 hours ago, Budget Queen said:

Good luck with the naive thinking that is is ONLY going to happen on NCL.   You-  know-  it will not happen to any other line-  in the future?     

 

Yeah-   NCL had a slow day and pulled one of their cruises out of a hat and figured on some "fun"  and made this decision?????

 

This whole thread has torpedoed in another direction.     Time to close the post.   

Please list for me the number of times a cruise has been cut short by two days, with one weeks notice, to get a ship into dry dock for a non emergency related repair/refit. I'll wait.

[NLH Arizona]

1 hour ago, JamieLogical said:

I felt like I might be approaching my breaking point back in January when our 11-Day Encore Inaugural Transatlantic from Southampton to Miami with a stop in the Azores was changed to a 9-Day from Southampton to NYC with no stops. The idea of such a northerly route in November did not appeal to us at all. Plus info on pricing discounts was slow in coming. Ultimately, the price reductions were very significant, but we still opted to cancel. We had planned to take two weeks off of work for the trip and the associated travel expenses were high. So, instead we determined we'd take two 7-day cruises including our first sailing on MSC (remember, we were feeling a bit jaded about NCL at this point).

 

However, since booking our sailing on the MSC Seaside, we have experienced their horrendous customer service. Any communication with them seems to just get lost down a black hole and nothing ever gets resolved. It's a wonder anyone ever successfully manages to make it on board one of their ships when just booking is this much of a hassle. So instead of reaching our breaking point with NCL, we have now reached our breaking point with MSC. We are canceling our September sailing with them and going on the Breakaway instead.

I have friends who tried MSC and hated it  They usually cruise Royal Caribbean.  They said the service and food were the worst.  They had book two MSC cruises, but after the first one they cancelled the second one and went right back to Royal Caribbean.

[ready2cruzagain]

19 minutes ago, NLH Arizona said:

I have friends who tried MSC and hated it  They usually cruise Royal Caribbean.  They said the service and food were the worst.  They had book two MSC cruises, but after the first one they cancelled the second one and went right back to Royal Caribbean.

 

We switched from NCL to MSC last November (did 32 days in the Caribbean on the Divina) and just loved it.  We have 28 days booked on the Seaside this Nov/Dec.  Have not had any problems with MSC.  I say each person has to try MSC out for themselves. 

 

Would love to sail NCL again but the price of their cruises are our breaking point.  Ridiculous price for older ships (Jade for one) with rotten itineraries.

 

 

[All-ready2cruise]

I've cruised on MSC Divina and also loved it; the cruise was a NYE cruise out of Miami 2016-17.  We had such a great time that we booked the Seaside for Feb. 2018. As far as food goes, we may have different opinions and food, being that it's so subjective, I'm not sure how one person's opinion should impact another's.  

 

Unfortunately, things happen and I had to cancel the Seaside cruise.  However, the cruise on Divina was great and I had no problems booking it.  I guess we just lucked out.  

[rxlowry]

Thanks for all the responses.  I've been a fan of NCL but it's definitely changing.  I'm sailing on the Spirit in July and looking forward to it.  I chose it because of itinerary and we enjoy the smaller ships.  I don't think a Cruise Next reward is in our future though.  We would be Platinum Plus the next cruise but I can't see that as much incentive when looking at the perks from that.  

I believe someone asked about why I posted this.  I just always find it interesting how with any decrease (or increase..PRICES) people seems to not be phased.    

It's not all monetary things for me.  I personally can't stand entertainment in the atrium on large ships.  Folding chairs and crowds.  It's not fun or enjoyable for me.