Spirit - Alaska Itinerary change notice

[jdc987]

For NCL Spirit, if you are going from Vancouver it is very likely the inside passage is not happening as it has been removed from all other NCL Spirit cruises.  It may or may not be a issue for you considering your itinerary or expectations. 

For many of us going to Alaska by cruise, the Inside passage was important and factored into our booking! 

[jbcallender]

On 2/25/2023 at 5:20 PM, kitkat343 said:

Are you outside of final payment?  If so, NCL announcing this while people can make changes to their bookings is actually a huge improvement over what they've done on other sailings.  On the January 8th Getaway, they cancelled the DR and morning in Antigua for environmental reasons after final payment.   They continued to advertise and sell this cruise as visiting the DR even after it was cancelled, and didn't let anyone reschedule because they made this change within final payment. There was a Panama Canal cruise that replaced Costa Rica and Nicaragua with Aculpolco for safety reasons (which might be valid for Nicaragua but harder to justify for Costa Rica) and the overnight in Panama was replaced with a short late visit that was too late to see the locks in action from land.  

 

Families should note that the Spirit doesn't have Splash Academy.

 

Yes, its now Spice H2O.  Don't know if you would want to do outdoor Splash Academy in Alaska in May or even July!

 

[jbcallender]

5 hours ago, fishin' musician said:

I wonder if it has to do with how much water the ship drafts?  The mega Princess ships have to sail out around Vancouver Island because of this.  It's too bad as this is a huge highlight.

Spirit is the one of the smallest and oldest of the NCL ships.  Minimal draft compared to the big ships.  

[bonvoyagie]

Also the shallowest part of the passage has 330ft of depth - that is the Seymore Narrows in the Discovery Passage.

[jatown59]

NCL has given me two different versions of why the Spirit won’t be going through the inside passage in May.  First, when I called NCL the day after getting the email a customer rep told me it was because they “want to reduce [their] carbon footprint in the area.”  He said this after consulting with his superiors.  
Subsequent to that I have received a message from NCL saying that NCL had “no control” over the decision.  If I had to attempt a harmonization of these two answers I suspect it probably does have something to do with the emissions of the Spirit which is an older ship.

Still don’t like the fact they took away my favorite part of the cruise and offer no compensation or the ability to cancel without penalty.

[bonvoyagie]

i thought that NCL installed scrubbers in all of their ships stacks several years ago. Also as I pointed out earlier, the outside route will burn more fuel and cause more carbon emissions. We will probably never get the truth - unless the captain or crew member speaks up.

[Karaboudjan]

19 minutes ago, bonvoyagie said:

i thought that NCL installed scrubbers in all of their ships stacks several years ago. Also as I pointed out earlier, the outside route will burn more fuel and cause more carbon emissions. We will probably never get the truth - unless the captain or crew member speaks up.

 

They did 13 ships, not all:

 

https://www.nclhltd.com/news-media/press-releases/detail/458/norwegian-cruise-line-holdings-completes-multi-year#:~:text=MIAMI%2C Dec. 13%2C 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Norwegian,of EGCS onboard Norwegian Breakaway and Norwegian Getaway

 

 

[Laszlo]

On 2/25/2023 at 12:55 PM, AusWeav said:

My travel agent just called us and said he was told by NCL that it was due to ice.  He was told that it is expected to be too icy to navigate and they had to make a call - for safety. 

Ice?   Thats a good one considering the cruise is two months away. 

[bonvoyagie]

19 minutes ago, Karaboudjan said:

 

They did 13 ships, not all:

 

https://www.nclhltd.com/news-media/press-releases/detail/458/norwegian-cruise-line-holdings-completes-multi-year#:~:text=MIAMI%2C Dec. 13%2C 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Norwegian,of EGCS onboard Norwegian Breakaway and Norwegian Getaway

 

 

Yes but they don't say which ships. I also read where the Spirit received a propulsion system upgrade in 2011 that improved maneuvering and increased efficiency.

[vacation44]

We are sailing on the Jewel later this year and we would be very disappointed if they changed our itinerary eliminating the inside passage.

[Topdog52]

On 3/1/2023 at 12:13 PM, Laszlo said:

Ice?   Thats a good one considering the cruise is two months away. 

It does happen. check out the month of this article.

 

https://www.cruisehive.com/norwegian-cruise-line-cancels-remainder-of-voyage-after-ship-hits-iceberg/75287

Norwegian Cruise Line Cancels Remainder of Voyage After Ship Hits Iceberg

 

Norwegian Cruise Line cancels Norwegian Sun's Alaskan voyage after the ship hit an iceberg. The vessel is now heading back to Seattle.

Edited March 3, 2023 by Topdog52