Will NCL pull a "ROYAL" with the Gem and Joy??

[PTC DAWG]

5 minutes ago, DCGuy64 said:

Yes, Barbados is beautiful, my very first cruise ever (on the Norwegian ship MS Starward) went there. In fact, it might even have been my very first port, come to think of it.

Our last cruise was with MSC in December 2019 and we went to Roatan, I've already been there twice so no desire to go back again just yet. I really liked the St Maarten, St Lucia and Antigua spots, too. Oh well, it was fun to dream. The irony is that we booked this cruise as a backup for one in Europe and now we may need a backup for the backup, LOL!

We have extended family booked in 4 cabins, Sept 18...hopefully we can keep something together..I too have been all over the western Caribbean, but will go again for my Family...we shall see..

 

Good Luck whatever happens.

[forgotmyCCname]

1 hour ago, oteixeira said:

I saw this in another thread, my only confusion is that online the bookings are in fact not frozen, and you can book right now.  It is a very mixed message.  Hopefully we get clarity soon.

Did you get all the way to payment?  Once you do  it shows an error message and to call NCL .

[JamieLogical]

24 minutes ago, PTC DAWG said:

It's not really sad if they can move the ship to a Florida port....MIA most likely.  No need in jumping to conclusions until we really have the answers..lots of things in motion.  

 

 

 

Only if they let us keep our bookings. If they cancel and then create a new sailing out of MIA, then we will likely all be screwed by higher prices.

[DCGuy64]

1 minute ago, PTC DAWG said:

We have extended family booked in 4 cabins, Sept 18...hopefully we can keep something together..I too have been all over the western Caribbean, but will go again for my Family...we shall see..

 

Good Luck whatever happens.

Yeah, I'm not complaining, I'd take another Western Caribbean cruise over nothing at all! We have a friend joining us who loves to cruise and I'm going to feel bad if his (and our cruise) gets cancelled. Good luck to you, as well. (side note: our next door neighbors spent a whole month in the Peach state last summer as sort of a socially distanced vacation. They loved it!)

[SSFun]

27 minutes ago, PTC DAWG said:

It's not really sad if they can move the ship to a Florida port....MIA most likely.  No need in jumping to conclusions until we really have the answers..lots of things in motion.  

 

 

You are correct! I tend to be one of those people that speaks my mind before really thinking of all of the possibilities. LOL! It is good that there are optimists like you out there to keep me in line, Thank you!  If they move the ship to a US port and leave our cabins booked as is, that would be great! I sincerely hope they do that! That would definitely make up for the limbo we are in! 

[PTC DAWG]

6 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

Only if they let us keep our bookings. If they cancel and then create a new sailing out of MIA, then we will likely all be screwed by higher prices.

We have whatever they now call the mini suites booked..the prices were OK, not great, when the airfare was thrown in, it was about the same as we have usually paid.  Add that the airfare they had us booked on was terrible in regards to flights and connections.  I'm used to flying directly out of ATL to pretty much anywhere I want to go.  Time will tell what happens, but it appears for sure that something is afoot.  

[SSFun]

28 minutes ago, DCGuy64 said:

My only concern about that is that I don't see them doing the same itinerary from MIA in 7 days. I've never been on a 7-day cruise that went as far south as Barbados that didn't start in the Caribbean already, such as San Juan. MIA cruises typically do the Jamaica/Mexico/Grand Cayman route and I've done that a number of times already. I liked the Gem's itinerary a lot and I don't see it surviving a US-based sailing, which sucks. Yes, I know the cruise lines always have the prerogative to change itineraries, but I liked this one. Oh well, we must wait and see.

We've been on a sailing out of MIA that went to Honduras. 🙂 

[DCGuy64]

If we end up flying out of Miami, I may ask NCL to refund us the air promotion. Flying to the DR isn't cheap, but Miami is very cheap from DC. We paid $699 for the two of us to fly to Santo Domingo with NCL, but we can get nonstop flights from DC to MIA for $250 each quite easily. That's the other wrinkle about the potential change in port. And unlike the distance between SDQ airport and La Romana, the cruise port in Miami isn't far from the airport at all. No sense spending $150 on transfers. A (potential) change like this has all sorts of ramifications, I'm afraid.

[DCGuy64]

6 minutes ago, SSFun said:

We've been on a sailing out of MIA that went to Honduras. 🙂 

Us, too. 2013 Carnival Liberty. Great trip, I'll never forget it. We went to Mahogany Bay.

[Alegeeter]

Just now, DCGuy64 said:

If we end up flying out of Miami, I may ask NCL to refund us the air promotion. Flying to the DR isn't cheap, but Miami is very cheap from DC. We paid $699 for the two of us to fly to Santo Domingo with NCL, but we can get nonstop flights from DC to MIA for $250 each quite easily. That's the other wrinkle about the potential change in port. And unlike the distance between SDQ airport and La Romana, the cruise port in Miami isn't far from the airport at all. No sense spending $150 on transfers. A (potential) change like this has all sorts of ramifications, I'm afraid.

I would hope that if we changed to Miami the price of the flight is changes. 2 for o1 airfare from JFK to Miami should be about $100, not the $300 we paid.

[SSFun]

2 minutes ago, DCGuy64 said:

Us, too. 2013 Carnival Liberty. Great trip, I'll never forget it. We went to Mahogany Bay.

We were on the Escape. It was our first time on her -  love that ship! We ziplined through the rainforest in Honduras. Best excursion ever! It was such a great itinerary and a wonderfully relaxing trip. 

[BermudaBound2014]

1 hour ago, oteixeira said:

NCL stopped doing FCCs in 2020.  There is nothing to worry about, you will get your money back in 15 days or less (I have had two cruises fully refunded without asking, it is the only option with NCL).

As for the Joy/Gem, I also can get all the way to paying the payment on an August cruise, so not sure what is happening there.

 

I would be extremely cautious making broad claims such as this. NCL could (and does) change policy with no notice. They could flip back to FCC's, or worse, at any given moment.

 

Not trying to be negative, just keeping it real. Wasn't it just yesterday people were posting that bookings for the Joy/Gem were brisk?? Anyone with even elementary research skills could see that claim was, in fact, just more fake news. 

 

What we know right now about the Gem/Joy is that some bookings are frozen. We don't know even know for certain if there will be changes, and we certainly don't know NCL's response to any changes.

 

With all that said, I do believe that if the Joy/Gem have been cancelled, NCL will do their very best to make those passengers whole if it is possible for them to do so. 

Edited May 25, 2021 by BermudaBound2014

[CroozFanatic]

You would think....NCL is going to save x number of dollars...if they cancel. Should return a few of those dollars, if not all, to the impacted sailors.

 

(post to see how many hearts I can get)

[BamaCruiser39]

8 minutes ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

What we know right now about the Gem/Joy is that bookings are frozen. We don't know even know for certain if there will be changes, and we certainly don't know NCL's response to any changes.

 

With all that said, I do believe that if the Joy/Gem have been cancelled, NCL will do their very best to make those passengers whole if it is possible for them to do so. 

Gem isn't showing "on hold" for my 8/15 sailing, and NCL is still allowing bookings on their website for the same itinerary as of about 5 minutes ago when I checked.

[BermudaBound2014]

7 minutes ago, CroozFanatic said:

You would think....NCL is going to save x number of dollars...if they cancel. Should return a few of those dollars, if not all, to the impacted sailors.

 

(post to see how many hearts I can get)

 

I concur.

 

 

 

 

[BermudaBound2014]

1 minute ago, BamaCruiser39 said:

Gem isn't showing "on hold" for my 8/15 sailing, and NCL is still allowing bookings on their website for the same itinerary as of about 5 minutes ago when I checked.

 

Thank you for sharing. I just edited my post to include the word 'some'. I do sincerely hope your sailing remains uneffected.

[DCGuy64]

5 minutes ago, BamaCruiser39 said:

Gem isn't showing "on hold" for my 8/15 sailing, and NCL is still allowing bookings on their website for the same itinerary as of about 5 minutes ago when I checked.

That is correct, Gem is still bookable for the moment. But as @BermudaBound2014 said, things could change at any moment.

[Alegeeter]

We should also keep in mind that if NCL cancelled all of us already booked on Joy/Gem, they would only have 2 months to book the ships from scratch for the first sailings. To me, it seems like a better business decision to just move all of us already booked on the first few sailings to make sure they will near-capacity ships rather than risk having angry customers AND empty ships .

[RaftingJeremy]

13 hours ago, Seany527 said:

This was an NCL reps response when I asked about my booking. 
 

 

I wouldn’t put to much into this response. It’s kind of been the standard answer for a year now.  They certainly are not making decisions based on ports in the Caribbean. With the exception of grand cayman, all the other islands are open and regularly receiving guests.  

[Seany527]

5 minutes ago, Alegeeter said:

We should also keep in mind that if NCL cancelled all of us already booked on Joy/Gem, they would only have 2 months to book the ships from scratch for the first sailings. To me, it seems like a better business decision to just move all of us already booked on the first few sailings to make sure they will near-capacity ships rather than risk having angry customers AND empty ships .

That’s a really good point. I can confirm new crew have joined the Jade in Europe. I don’t know if new crew have met up with Joy and Gem yet. 
But none the less, the ships and islands are ready to go. The people are booked. Moving the ship to a new port with guests already booked is going to generate revenue. Nearly, if not all people, have to fly to Jamaica or DR. It’s not like people thought there would be no airfare involved and now they have to pay for flights. 

[Alegeeter]

Staff have begun to join the Joy too! They have been onboarding in Aruba and are going to start getting vaccinated in the next couple weeks, if they aren't already.

[DCGuy64]

7 minutes ago, Seany527 said:

That’s a really good point. I can confirm new crew have joined the Jade in Europe. I don’t know if new crew have met up with Joy and Gem yet. 
But none the less, the ships and islands are ready to go. The people are booked. Moving the ship to a new port with guests already booked is going to generate revenue. Nearly, if not all people, have to fly to Jamaica or DR. It’s not like people thought there would be no airfare involved and now they have to pay for flights. 

So OK, what's the reason for freezing the sailings right now if the clock is ticking, the islands are open, and the ports are ready to go? Is it just shifting the embarkation port and that's it? I'm not sure I understand the thinking here. Sorry if I'm just being obtuse.

[graphicguy]

Puzzling.  But, have a call into my TA.  She's really on top of this stuff and talks to her NCL rep daily.  Personally, although I am looking forward to having out in Jamaica before and after my cruise, if it switches to MIA, I'm OK with that, too.  My flights are switchable.  

 

FL Governor Desantis has to be seething right now that his power play didn't work and cooler heads prevailed.  Hard to believe that the cruise lines took the safety of their passengers over "how it made them look" approach.  But, at least NCL did just that.

[DCGuy64]

The optimist in me says NCL is hopeful that cruises will resume from the US soon and that requiring 100% vaccinations will mean no delays due to test sailings. Thus, no need to start cruises from abroad. They have that gorgeous terminal in Miami so perhaps this is all a good thing. The icing on the cake would be if the "new" cruises cost less. We got a heck of a deal on our Mini Suite so I'd be happy paying the same as right now. I just want to know I'm going somewhere.

I'd love to see an announcement soon with an upbeat headline of "NCL Returns to Miami for Exciting Caribbean Itineraries Starting in August" or something like that.

[PTC DAWG]

1 hour ago, DCGuy64 said:

If we end up flying out of Miami, I may ask NCL to refund us the air promotion. Flying to the DR isn't cheap, but Miami is very cheap from DC. We paid $699 for the two of us to fly to Santo Domingo with NCL, but we can get nonstop flights from DC to MIA for $250 each quite easily. That's the other wrinkle about the potential change in port. And unlike the distance between SDQ airport and La Romana, the cruise port in Miami isn't far from the airport at all. No sense spending $150 on transfers. A (potential) change like this has all sorts of ramifications, I'm afraid.

They will take the air off the reservation  in the chat feature online, very easy if we get to that.  I will do the same out of ATL.

Edited May 25, 2021 by PTC DAWG