Should I stay or should I go?

[Até]

6 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

We talked to our PCC and we booked B2B on the Sky out of Miami for the same weeks....

 

We'll see what happens with the NCL vaccine requirement for sailings out of FL... hopefully they can work something out by September. ...

 

I am definitely NOT getting my hopes up AT ALL for this one though. Between the CDC and FL's weird vaccine rules, a lot can go wrong between now and September....

So it was you...  I was looking at the September Sky sailings and while picking a cabin all the prices jumped $200pp. 

 

Apparently Celebrity just announced they are doing fully vaccinated cruises out of Florida.

[JamieLogical]

3 minutes ago, Até said:

So it was you...  I was looking at the September Sky sailings and while picking a cabin all the prices jumped $200pp. 

 

Apparently Celebrity just announced they are doing fully vaccinated cruises out of Florida.

 

Yep! You can blame me!

[CaptainWoody]

2 hours ago, Sea saw 56 said:

After having two cruises cancelled, and opting to have our money refunded (two suites, Plat +), I stated in a previous post that I would prolly not book again until ships were actually sailing, and I was reading good reviews about the service, the condition of the ships, etc.

 

Well......a couple weeks ago we booked a 10 day Alaska for September of 2022, and even that took a lot of consideration.  Only reason I pulled the trigger was I felt certain COVID numbers finally reflected that the ships would begin sailing before long, and my gut said that prices would soar once the first few ships sailed.

 

Sorry, but I feel many rolled the dice a bit early by booking too soon.

Of course at this point, I could also have bad luck with my roll.  May September 2022 will end up the same?  All a gamble at this point.

Why are you "rolling the dice" just to book a cruise.  It takes about five minutes and you will get your $250 back quickly if you change your mind.  Why wait until ships are sailing, promos are vanishing and prices are skyrocketing?  What on earth do you have to lose?

[JamieLogical]

1 minute ago, CaptainWoody said:

Why are you "rolling the dice" just to book a cruise.  It takes about five minutes and you will get your $250 back quickly if you change your mind.  Why wait until ships are sailing, promos are vanishing and prices are skyrocketing?  What on earth do you have to lose?

 

 

Right? Apparently the prices for the Sky sailing I booked just a couple of hours ago have already gone up $200pp. It costs me nothing to book, other than a call to my PCC. The trick is not to get *emotionally* invested.

[skywonder]

7 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

 

Right? Apparently the prices for the Sky sailing I booked just a couple of hours ago have already gone up $200pp. It costs me nothing to book, other than a call to my PCC. The trick is not to get *emotionally* invested.

Good choice JamieLogical, CaptainWoody has a good point.

Edited May 27, 2021 by skywonder

[MaryZ]

It's good you rolled all  your credits into this cruise.  I'm not sure I would have chosen September but hopefully you get to go.
I would have rolled them into the Prima in 2023. 
This way you try other lines and when you get back onto NCL, it's a brand new type of ship and it might be a better experience.
It's always a good thing to try new places.  Royal is fun, the big new Carnival ships are fun.  Celebrity is awesome.  MSC is beautiful.  Variety is fun.  No investment other than money for fun.  Attaching to a brand isn't always the best choice.

[JamieLogical]

4 minutes ago, MaryZ said:

It's good you rolled all  your credits into this cruise.  I'm not sure I would have chosen September but hopefully you get to go.
I would have rolled them into the Prima in 2023. 
This way you try other lines and when you get back onto NCL, it's a brand new type of ship and it might be a better experience.
It's always a good thing to try new places.  Royal is fun, the big new Carnival ships are fun.  Celebrity is awesome.  MSC is beautiful.  Variety is fun.  No investment other than money for fun.  Attaching to a brand isn't always the best choice.

 

We picked September because we already had it scheduled off of work, initially for a Princess sailing to Alaska that was cancelled and then for the Joy out of Jamaica. Several of our credits need to be used by the end of 2021 for 2022 sailings so we weren't going to be able to do anything too far out. I will be glad to get these credits unloaded ASAP so we can feel free to explore other lines before committing to any more NCL sailings.

[natefish95]

Jamie, 

I too feel incredibly pissed off. My Gem sailing in September wasn't cancelled (for now...) but my Jewel sailing in January 2022 was. I booked far out thinking everything would be fine and spent so much time planning this dream itinerary from San Diego to Panama. My sailing (1/9/22) was cancelled, but now the Jewel is scheduled to start up with the cruise after mine. It just feel like an arbitrary cutoff and seems so bizarre to even homeport in Panama in the first place. 

 

After seeing what they've done to the Joy sailings, my trust in NCL has really eroded. I'm in no hurry to book another NCL cruise anytime soon because this constant reshuffling is really pissing me off and I feel like they could reshuffle again at any time. 

[forgotmyCCname]

42 minutes ago, MaryZ said:

It's good you rolled all  your credits into this cruise.  I'm not sure I would have chosen September but hopefully you get to go.
I would have rolled them into the Prima in 2023. 
This way you try other lines and when you get back onto NCL, it's a brand new type of ship and it might be a better experience.
It's always a good thing to try new places.  Royal is fun, the big new Carnival ships are fun.  Celebrity is awesome.  MSC is beautiful.  Variety is fun.  No investment other than money for fun.  Attaching to a brand isn't always the best choice.

Agreed- we have never been loyal to a line yet are Platinum ( I thought we werent but we are!) on NCL and Diamond Plus on Royal. Our now -adult children also have the same statuses which will be nice for them. We aren't able to cruise more than twice a year but have been blessed to always book suites. The "loyalty" points add up quickly. We have cruised mainly RCL, NCL ; Disney when the kids were young. We have tossed in a Costa and a Princess, a Carnival and a Holland America to round it out. The benefits of loyalty have little appeal ; I do enjoy the free bags of laundry on NCL and the candy on RCL . 

I also think it's time to try MSC.

We have had our last 4  cruises cancel but this one really hurt. We were very cautious in booking it once our Dawn out of Venice cancelled for the second time

We are hopping over to Symphony for our Sept 25 cruise and have our fingers crossed.

My husband and I both got calls from NCL today trying to sell us on Sky- I considered it yesterday but there was only a huge suite left which was cost prohibitive. They were "cold calling" , both denying that they had any idea to at we had been booked on Joy. 
I know that Frank didn't create this pandemic but his attitude has irritated me. So it will be goodbye to NCL for a while. I'll have to trade the race cars for "The Abyss".
 

[HBCcruiser]

2 hours ago, MaryZ said:

It's good you rolled all  your credits into this cruise.  I'm not sure I would have chosen September but hopefully you get to go.
I would have rolled them into the Prima in 2023. 
This way you try other lines and when you get back onto NCL, it's a brand new type of ship and it might be a better experience.
It's always a good thing to try new places.  Royal is fun, the big new Carnival ships are fun.  Celebrity is awesome.  MSC is beautiful.  Variety is fun.  No investment other than money for fun.  Attaching to a brand isn't always the best choice.

That was my plan until I was told that my 10%s and FCCs run out December 2022! I put in a request to NCL Passenger relations to extend all FCC and Coupons to December 2023. I’ll let you know what they say…supposedly in 30 days…🙄

[sparks1093]

15 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

Today we received confirmation of what we had suspected for a few days: our Joy sailing out of Jamaica for September was being canceled. Cruise cancelations are nothing new for us at this point. We have had five cruises canceled due to COVID, including one with only 2 days' notice for March 15, 2020. But this one is especially painful, because we booked this specific sailing as our first "post-COVID" cruise. It was billed as a "Return to Sea" for NCL. Because it was sailing out of Jamaica, it would not be subject to the CDC's conditional sail order or any of the other issues with sailing from US ports. We booked this as a sure bet... a cruise we could finally be certain would actually sail.

 

Well this time it wasn't COVID or the CDC that put the kibosh on our sailing, it was greed. NCL decided to pull the crew from the Joy so they could quickly staff up the Bliss for their more lucrative Alaska sailings. Rather than offer to transfer our booking or offer us some sort of additional FCC for screwing us over, they offered us the same 10% coupon they've been offering on all canceled sailings for months. And, by the way, you can only have one 10% coupon on your account, so if you already have one from one of your five previously canceled cruises, tough luck.

 

Needless to say, I feel incredibly wronged. Unfortunately, we have thousands of dollars of FCC from our canceled March 2020 sailings, four CruiseNext certificates, $500 of CruiseFirst, and $690 of FCC from a price drop on our last pre-COVID sailing in December of 2019. If we walk away from NCL altogether, we can request refunds of our FCC from the canceled March sailings, but we will lose our $690 of additional FCC and we will lose $1500 in CruiseNext/CruiseFirst.

 

Right now, our options are:

• Cash out, try to sell our CruiseNext/CruiseFirst, give up that $690 of FCC and move on from NCL altogether.
• Try to book some other sailings on NCL for the same weeks in September as we were booked on the Joy, pray those too don't get canceled, burn through all of our FCC and CruiseNext, sell/gift our CruiseFirst, and leave NCL in our rearview mirror in 2022.
• Forgive NCL for this egregious slight, try to put it behind us, and continue to sail with NCL for years to come.

 

Cast your vote and feel free to explain your answers in the comments.

 

 

I would at least book one more with them to use the credits and then I would shop around for any cruises after that. My loyalty is to myself, my family and my wallet first and Del Rio showed me after he took over that he feels the same about his cruise line, which he will always put first before the customer. I haven't sailed NCL since Del Rio took over and that is mostly because he has priced NCL way out of our range. This might change when the day comes that we can book last minute cruises, but for now NCL is always the most expensive option (and to be honest Celebrity isn't that much more, so if we wanted to spend that kind of scratch we'd likely go with a line we haven't tried first).

[SliderNc]

It is a tough situation to be put in and would question my loyalty to any company especially when your heart is in it and you are also a shareholder.

 

I continue to hope that things get better and cruising really starts up again.  I held off on booking anything the past year because I had no faith in this being a fast process and looking at all of the lines and their plans, I sense that they are trying to get back on track a bit as a company more than honor loyalty.  They have gone without major revenue for over a year and will continue that way for almost close to two years when it's all said and done.  The pent up demand for cruising now that there is some light at the end of the tunnel with COVID-19 is going to cause cruise fares to be expensive for a bit of time as well as the company needing to start generating revenue for shareholders.  At the beginning of the pandemic, NCL stock dropped like a rock (ironically, I bought another 200 shares when it was in single digits) and it has come back a bit, but not to it's 1 year high pre-pandemic.

 

I hope you are able to enjoy your cruises and experience other lines.  While NCL is my favorite overall right now for what it provides my family, there are other lines out there that offer similar products and I always think that everyone should experience it at least once to see if they are missing something that their favorite line does not provide.

[AstoriaPreppy]

18 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

Needless to say, I feel incredibly wronged. Unfortunately, we have thousands of dollars of FCC from our canceled March 2020 sailings, four CruiseNext certificates, $500 of CruiseFirst, and $690 of FCC from a price drop on our last pre-COVID sailing in December of 2019. If we walk away from NCL altogether, we can request refunds of our FCC from the canceled March sailings, but we will lose our $690 of additional FCC and we will lose $1500 in CruiseNext/CruiseFirst.

 

I feel your pain. This is an awful situation to be in. With the amount you have invested, I think you should burn off as much as you can on a single sailing and then walk away. 

 

Sadly, I've learned (the hard way) that treating customers poorly is standard operating procedure for NCL. It's a combination of poor leadership, mismanagement, and a completely skewed sense of how to treat customers. 

 

In February of 2020, we were booked on a Hong Kong to Singapore sailing on the Jade. Of course, with the COVID-19 pandemic in the early stages, we realized there was a lot that could happen. Other lines (Royal, etc) canceled their HK departures in January, but for weeks, NCL's response to this was "oh, the ship is still sailing from HK-Singapore, no changes."

 

When HK shut down the terminal 11 days before the sailing, NCL sent out an update: we were now sailing roundtrip from Singapore, and NCL would pay for the fare difference and flight change fees (to be submitted post-cruise, HA). So, everyone changed their flights... only to have NCL cancel the sailing outright 3 days before departure (when many people where in-flight to Singapore).

Of course, they profusely apologized, and offered us a 25% discount on a future cruise. 

The fun started when people attempted to get their flights refunded. NCL had the audacity to send out a new letter, stating that what they really meant initially was that they'd cover change fees for flights (not the fare difference), up to $300. When presented with the initial communication they had sent out, their response was essentially "tough luck, take the $300 and stop whining."

 

It took months of emailing them to get them to refund me the addition ~$250 in fare difference. There were many people on our roll call who spent thousands based on NCL's communications, realized they were getting nowhere with guest services, and just took the $300 and walked away.

 

The 25% discount was another story entirely. It was only usable by calling NCL directly (not online). Initially, guest services told us that there was a one-year booking window to use the certificate, but we later discovered when booking a cruise that it was a one year discount, meaning we'd have to sail by February 2021. NCL's booking team encouraged me to call guest services and argue my case, hoping I could get it applied to a Nov 2021 sailing.

We emailed guest services repeatedly asking them to extend the discount, since no sailings were actually taking place, and they refused repeatedly. When I expressed confusion at how we were expected to use a discount when all sailings were canceled, we were told that they couldn't change the rules on a case by case basis, and I could certainly apply the discount a cruise that would not take place. We booked, but ended up canceling the Nov 2021 cruise several months later, and will probably just let the $500 in future cruise credits expire. 

The whole experience really (really) soured me on NCL, especially knowing that other lines offer a compelling product (and seem to actually want me as a customer). I'd much rather spend money on a Carnival or Royal brand that is well managed shoreside, because at this point I have zero faith that NCL leadership will do the right thing for any of their customers.

 

 

 

 

[JamieLogical]

4 minutes ago, AstoriaPreppy said:

 

I feel your pain. This is an awful situation to be in. With the amount you have invested, I think you should burn off as much as you can on a single sailing and then walk away. 

 

Sadly, I've learned (the hard way) that treating customers poorly is standard operating procedure for NCL. It's a combination of poor leadership, mismanagement, and a completely skewed sense of how to treat customers. 

 

In February of 2020, we were booked on a Hong Kong to Singapore sailing on the Jade. Of course, with the COVID-19 pandemic in the early stages, we realized there was a lot that could happen. Other lines (Royal, etc) canceled their HK departures in January, but for weeks, NCL's response to this was "oh, the ship is still sailing from HK-Singapore, no changes."

 

When HK shut down the terminal 11 days before the sailing, NCL sent out an update: we were now sailing roundtrip from Singapore, and NCL would pay for the fare difference and flight change fees (to be submitted post-cruise, HA). So, everyone changed their flights... only to have NCL cancel the sailing outright 3 days before departure (when many people where in-flight to Singapore).

Of course, they profusely apologized, and offered us a 25% discount on a future cruise. 

The fun started when people attempted to get their flights refunded. NCL had the audacity to send out a new letter, stating that what they really meant initially was that they'd cover change fees for flights (not the fare difference), up to $300. When presented with the initial communication they had sent out, their response was essentially "tough luck, take the $300 and stop whining."

 

It took months of emailing them to get them to refund me the addition ~$250 in fare difference. There were many people on our roll call who spent thousands based on NCL's communications, realized they were getting nowhere with guest services, and just took the $300 and walked away.

 

The 25% discount was another story entirely. It was only usable by calling NCL directly (not online). Initially, guest services told us that there was a one-year booking window to use the certificate, but we later discovered when booking a cruise that it was a one year discount, meaning we'd have to sail by February 2021. NCL's booking team encouraged me to call guest services and argue my case, hoping I could get it applied to a Nov 2021 sailing.

We emailed guest services repeatedly asking them to extend the discount, since no sailings were actually taking place, and they refused repeatedly. When I expressed confusion at how we were expected to use a discount when all sailings were canceled, we were told that they couldn't change the rules on a case by case basis, and I could certainly apply the discount a cruise that would not take place. We booked, but ended up canceling the Nov 2021 cruise several months later, and will probably just let the $500 in future cruise credits expire. 

The whole experience really (really) soured me on NCL, especially knowing that other lines offer a compelling product (and seem to actually want me as a customer). I'd much rather spend money on a Carnival or Royal brand that is well managed shoreside, because at this point I have zero faith that NCL leadership will do the right thing for any of their customers.

 

 

 

 

 

Wow, that is a rough story. The most I was out for my canceled March 2020 sailing was the $150 one-way airfare I had paid to fly to NYC!

[deweytrader]

We have tried many of the other lines and NCL is by far our favorite.  Have had 15+ cruises cancelled and have been made whole from all cruise lines.  With that being said we have cruises planned for June, July and August this summer and if any/all get cancelled I will just move on. In fact we were originally on the 8/21/21 Bliss to Alaska but we HAD to cancel because we travel with our kids who can not be vaccinated yet!  I just shrugged it off as Murphy's law!  After so many cancellations it just starts to not bother you anymore....Also you can sell your Cruise Next and $690 FCC - it can be transferred.  The FCC market is HOT on the Facebook page right now....

[AstoriaPreppy]

8 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

Wow, that is a rough story. The most I was out for my canceled March 2020 sailing was the $150 one-way airfare I had paid to fly to NYC!

TBH, we were lucky. Most of the Brits on the voyage were in-flight to Singapore when they were notified of the cancelation... or saw it on their layover in Dubai. 

It's disappointing, because NCL has interesting international itineraries, sails a lot from NYC where we live, and the onboard experience is usually completely okay. But I can't realistically make a case for spending money with a company that appears to have a customer service department run with some sort of Ayn Rand-ian philosophy of repeatedly kicking their most loyal passengers in the teeth and telling them it's awesome.

[spanishguy1970]

18 hours ago, DCGuy64 said:

I 100% agree with @BermudaBound2014 here. This all went down today and I absolutely understand @JamieLogical's reaction. (I'd be right there with you) But I would also wait a week and see what happens, and consider drafting a polite but firm letter to NCL about this. The more people push back, and in the right manner, the greater the company's chances of doing right by you.

I have to wonder if any of the other cruise lines will be eyeing this decision by NCL and seeing what blowback there might be.

I wrote to NCL and gave them push back. We have had 3 cruises canceled and we took the FCC plus 25% more incentive and the way they are handling this sucks. Are we giving up on NCL hmmm no. We received our FCC back today and we are now looking for next year Transatlantics. I just think is time for NCL to sweeten the pot for loyal customers. IMO.

Edited May 27, 2021 by spanishguy1970

[AdoraBelle]

1 hour ago, spanishguy1970 said:

I just think is time for NCL to sweeten the pot for loyal customers. IMO.

 

I've literally never seen them do that once in six years of sailing. 🙂

[trivimp]

16 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

 

We talked to our PCC and we booked B2B on the Sky out of Miami for the same weeks. The ship will be very different from any of the ships we've been on so far, with the possible exception of the Gem, and we had to roll the dice with GTY balconies (not sailaway) for both sailings, because balconies were nearly sold out. We'll see what happens with the NCL vaccine requirement for sailings out of FL...

Oh, we're doing the same B2B in October... we like the Sky.  🙂 

[spanishguy1970]

3 hours ago, AdoraBelle said:

 

I've literally never seen them do that once in six years of sailing. 🙂

neither have I, but the circumstances have changed :-)☺️

 

[DCGuy64]

I’ve never seen an exception made to the PVSA yet here we are. Anything is possible at this point! 

[Seany527]

12 hours ago, deweytrader said:

We have tried many of the other lines and NCL is by far our favorite.  Have had 15+ cruises cancelled and have been made whole from all cruise lines.  With that being said we have cruises planned for June, July and August this summer and if any/all get cancelled I will just move on. In fact we were originally on the 8/21/21 Bliss to Alaska but we HAD to cancel because we travel with our kids who can not be vaccinated yet!  I just shrugged it off as Murphy's law!  After so many cancellations it just starts to not bother you anymore....Also you can sell your Cruise Next and $690 FCC - it can be transferred.  The FCC market is HOT on the Facebook page right now....

Were your 15+ cruises marketed as “return to sea” sailings?

Edited May 28, 2021 by Seany527

[deweytrader]

They were not NCL return to sea sailings as NCL requires fully vaccinated cruises and my kids are both under 12.  If I could have I would have booked the Joy for sure.  Some where Carnival cruises from their start-up plan last summer.  My point is in this day/time you should not take it personally, and if they gave the Joy cancellations more rebooking incentives, everybody who had a cancelled cruise in the last 15 months would be up  in arms...Nothing is for certain right now and NCL made the best business decision that they could as the CDC started to play ball and US cruises came back into play.

[JamieLogical]

45 minutes ago, deweytrader said:

They were not NCL return to sea sailings as NCL requires fully vaccinated cruises and my kids are both under 12.  If I could have I would have booked the Joy for sure.  Some where Carnival cruises from their start-up plan last summer.  My point is in this day/time you should not take it personally, and if they gave the Joy cancellations more rebooking incentives, everybody who had a cancelled cruise in the last 15 months would be up  in arms...Nothing is for certain right now and NCL made the best business decision that they could as the CDC started to play ball and US cruises came back into play.

 

I don't know that everyone else that got canceled would be up in arms if the Joy passengers got more compensation. There is still a HUGE difference between sailings being canceled due to COVID and restrictions from ports/governments than the cruiselines themselves cancelling a sailing to move the crew to a potentially more high-revenue sailing. Lumping the Joy cancelation in with the run-of-the-mill COVID cancelations we've been seeing for months is very misleading.

[graphicguy]

1 hour ago, JamieLogical said:

 

I don't know that everyone else that got canceled would be up in arms if the Joy passengers got more compensation. There is still a HUGE difference between sailings being canceled due to COVID and restrictions from ports/governments than the cruiselines themselves cancelling a sailing to move the crew to a potentially more high-revenue sailing. Lumping the Joy cancelation in with the run-of-the-mill COVID cancelations we've been seeing for months is very misleading.

I'll go even further....saying the GEM and JOY cancellations are a function of COVID is not only misleading, it's an out and out lie!