Our cruise will embark passengers in multiple ports

[TashaB]

In June of 2022 we booked the Norwegian Escape 11 day cruise from Barcelona to Trieste September 29, 2024 to October 10, 2024.   Some months later we noticed that NCL is now embarking passengers in different ports.   Sorry, a bit confusing, but here is what they are now selling:

 

September 24 to October 3  Rome to Rome 9 days

September 29 to October 10  Barcelona to Trieste 11 days (the one we are booked on)

October 3 to October 10 Rome to Trieste 7 days

 

Fortunately for us, the pricing we are paying is almost 30% less than what is being asked for the 11 days now.   It seems that NCL wants to sell the 9 days not the 11.   In addition the 7 day cruise is even more expensive!

 

Has anyone experienced sailing on something similar where the cruise starts and ends in different ports?   I have seen 2 but never 3 actual cruises on one ship.  How would NCL handle situations such as menus, entertainment etc.    I have been on 43 cruises over 45 years but this one definitely is new to me!   Any advice greatly appreciated.   BTW we are in the 70 to 75 age bracket, 3 cabins.   

[navybankerteacher]

20 minutes ago, TashaB said:

In June of 2022 we booked the Norwegian Escape 11 day cruise from Barcelona to Trieste September 29, 2024 to October 10, 2024.   Some months later we noticed that NCL is now embarking passengers in different ports.   Sorry, a bit confusing, but here is what they are now selling:

 

September 24 to October 3  Rome to Rome 9 days

September 29 to October 10  Barcelona to Trieste 11 days (the one we are booked on)

October 3 to October 10 Rome to Trieste 7 days

 

Fortunately for us, the pricing we are paying is almost 30% less than what is being asked for the 11 days now.   It seems that NCL wants to sell the 9 days not the 11.   In addition the 7 day cruise is even more expensive!

 

Has anyone experienced sailing on something similar where the cruise starts and ends in different ports?   I have seen 2 but never 3 actual cruises on one ship.  How would NCL handle situations such as menus, entertainment etc.    I have been on 43 cruises over 45 years but this one definitely is new to me!   Any advice greatly appreciated.   BTW we are in the 70 to 75 age bracket, 3 cabins.   

This is fairly common - when longer itineraries are involved.  Think of it as being comparable to long distance train from New York to Washington —- stopping at Newark, Trenton, Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore.  The line sells tickets for each segment, several segments, or the whole route - with cost usually reflecting the demand at the time the ticket is sold.

 

They are not separate “cruises”, just segments of a longer itinerary.  And, when it come to cruising, some people book “back to back” itineraries, so  two complete trips might be seen as one “cruise”.

[ontheweb]

We were on the NCL Epic in 2012 and sailed round trip from Barcelona. There were 2 other ports that the ship embarked and disembarked passengers, Rome and Marseilles.

 

On our second night aboard the ship, we dined at the Cirq d' Soleil dinner theater. We shared a table with a couple who were on their last night.

[John Bull]

1 hour ago, TashaB said:

In June of 2022 we booked the Norwegian Escape 11 day cruise from Barcelona to Trieste September 29, 2024 to October 10, 2024.   Some months later we noticed that NCL is now embarking passengers in different ports.   Sorry, a bit confusing, but here is what they are now selling:

 

September 24 to October 3  Rome to Rome 9 days

September 29 to October 10  Barcelona to Trieste 11 days (the one we are booked on)

October 3 to October 10 Rome to Trieste 7 days

 

Fortunately for us, the pricing we are paying is almost 30% less than what is being asked for the 11 days now.   It seems that NCL wants to sell the 9 days not the 11.   In addition the 7 day cruise is even more expensive!

 

Has anyone experienced sailing on something similar where the cruise starts and ends in different ports?   I have seen 2 but never 3 actual cruises on one ship.  How would NCL handle situations such as menus, entertainment etc.    I have been on 43 cruises over 45 years but this one definitely is new to me!   Any advice greatly appreciated.   BTW we are in the 70 to 75 age bracket, 3 cabins.   

 

We've done several one-way cruises. For instance Rome to Venice, it means we can add a few days to explore two ports, pre-cruise and post-cruise. The ship then does the reverse cruise, eg Venice to Rome - sometimes the self-same ports, sometimes a few different ports. Some folk book the round-trip as two back-to-back cruises.

Our example sounds similar to your cruise, with Trieste replacing Venice due to the Venice ban on mid-size and large cruise ships. Trieste is about 100 miles from Venice, the ship (and probably Trieste operators) will doubtless offer tours to Venice and (more sensible) "Venice on-your-own" transfers

 

We've only done one (14-day) cruise (MSC Seaside)  with several embarkation ports - they're rather different to segments of longer cruises, which we've also done.

It actually makes the embarkation / disembarkation quicker and easier because only a proportion of the passengers are joining / leaving at the same time.

- Makes no odds to you at the other embarkation / disembarkation ports - you'll see but not join any immigration / registration lines. 

- You might find one or two of each bank of elevators out of service for a while (being used for luggage)

- Won't affect menus, though if you're on a shared table you might have a change of table-mates.

-  Won't affect your 10-day entertainment, other than that the order of the main shows will differ for those who book, say, Salerno to Salerno. And if there's a special "last night" it won't be properly special because it'll be mid-cruise for some of the passengers. Those who book back-to-back might have a repeat of one or two main shows 

 

- The one big negative is that it's more likely to attract Europeans because they can choose the closest / most-convenient embarkation port. So it will be much more cosmopolitan than you're used to.

Europeans don't bite 😏 but altho many speak passable English your interaction with most of them will be limited by different languages. For the same reason you're unlikely to have any comedians & entertainment will be mainly song, dance. and visual.

It will also result in announcements (loudspeakers  and in the theatre) being in several languages, which can be quite boring and wearing  - that was particularly so on our cruise because the cruise director liked to show off his language skills whereas shorter announcements would have been more suitable.🙄

 

Pros & cons. 

Look on it as "differences"

 

JB 🙂

Edited July 29, 2023 by John Bull

[Toofarfromthesea]

1 hour ago, TashaB said:

In June of 2022 we booked the Norwegian Escape 11 day cruise from Barcelona to Trieste September 29, 2024 to October 10, 2024.   Some months later we noticed that NCL is now embarking passengers in different ports.   Sorry, a bit confusing, but here is what they are now selling:

 

September 24 to October 3  Rome to Rome 9 days

September 29 to October 10  Barcelona to Trieste 11 days (the one we are booked on)

October 3 to October 10 Rome to Trieste 7 days

 

Fortunately for us, the pricing we are paying is almost 30% less than what is being asked for the 11 days now.   It seems that NCL wants to sell the 9 days not the 11.   In addition the 7 day cruise is even more expensive!

 

Has anyone experienced sailing on something similar where the cruise starts and ends in different ports?   I have seen 2 but never 3 actual cruises on one ship.  How would NCL handle situations such as menus, entertainment etc.    I have been on 43 cruises over 45 years but this one definitely is new to me!   Any advice greatly appreciated.   BTW we are in the 70 to 75 age bracket, 3 cabins.   

 

It happens pretty routinely on MSC Med cruises.

[chengkp75]

This is called "interporting", and is not "segments of longer cruises", but overlapping cruises that go to the same ports, but start and end at different times.

 

As to the OP's questions, entertainment is just scheduled on a set rotation, based on the longest cruise (like your 11 day).  Those on the shorter cruises see what is available on the days they are onboard, and miss the other entertainment.  Same thing with menus, set rotation based on the longest cruise, and the others get what is available on the days they are onboard.

 

Most interporting consists of two 7 day cruises, one that say starts  on Sunday, and one that starts on Tuesday.  One cruise is Sunday to Sunday, the other Tuesday to Tuesday, so in that case both cruises see all the entertainment, and get all the menus, just in different order.

 

As stated, this is common in Europe, where the EU's cabotage laws allow this.

 

There will be muster "orientation" (I won't honor it by calling it a "drill" anymore) for each group that embarks on a different day, so that may impact your service onboard during that time as crew are taken away for that and as noted for luggage, and turning cabins.

[TashaB]

Thank you for the very useful information.   I had thought that this might mean more European passengers.  It's always great to cruise with a large mix of different nationalities and languages.    I was once on a South America cruise that had lots of Latin speaking passengers from many South American countries.   We had a blast.....but dining became very late at night for dinner!

[Turtles06]

1 hour ago, TashaB said:

  I was once on a South America cruise that had lots of Latin speaking passengers from many South American countries. 

I rather doubt anyone was speaking Latin. 😉

[Essiesmom]

The shorter cruises are more expensive/popular because many guests can’t take the time off for the longer cruise.  And you might find that a cruise that starts on a Saturday or Sunday costs more than one that starts midweek, because for a midweek cruise they have to take off odd bunches of days.  As an example, Carnival has a ship in Jacksonville that does a 5/5/4 rotation of cruises.  One leaves on Monday and returns Sat morning, the next one leaves Saturday and returns Thursday, and the 4 day leaves Thursday and returns Monday.  The Mon-Saturday cruise is less expensive than the Thursday-Monday.  EM

[new_cruiser]

5 hours ago, TashaB said:

Fortunately for us, the pricing we are paying is almost 30% less than what is being asked for the 11 days now.   It seems that NCL wants to sell the 9 days not the 11.   In addition the 7 day cruise is even more expensive!

 

Some lines adjust prices often depending how a cruise is booking up. I had a cruise where I had booked for 23 days with a very good sale price on the cruise with a waived solo supplement. The cruise had a 13-day ocean crossing and a 10-day Lisbon round trip. By the time we sailed, the per person double occupancy price for the 10-day segment was more than I was paying as a solo for 23 days. 

 

It sounds like the 7-day segment is booking up well - the 9-day doesn't overlap the 7-day so that may be why it has better pricing than the 11 day. Not clear why the 7-day would be priced higher than the 11-day that includes it, but pricing anomalies do occur due to sales or because they figure they will get more revenue from people buying extras on board for the longer cruise - or just because pricing can be weird. One time my son was booking flights to Seattle and found that First Class was priced lower than Coach. 

[TashaB]

4 hours ago, Turtles06 said:

I rather doubt anyone was speaking Latin. 😉

OMG  Sorry.  I meant Latino persons not Latin speaking.  I guess I need to proof my posts better 😁 

[sverigecruiser]

On 7/29/2023 at 6:26 PM, TashaB said:

Has anyone experienced sailing on something similar where the cruise starts and ends in different ports?   I have seen 2 but never 3 actual cruises on one ship.  How would NCL handle situations such as menus, entertainment etc.

 

We have done two MSC cruises in the Mediterranean where people embarked/disembarked in every port.

 

I don't know how NCL handle it but MSC just roll the meny over seven days, the same menu every friday for example.

 

The taxiline was long when we disembarked in Barcelona so we were glad that not all 6000 passengers disembarked there!

[Gwendy]

Princess has a cruise that leaves Barcelona, 7 days to Rome, picks up more passengers, then 7 days to Athens, then another 7 days etc, before returning to Barcelona and repeating the process.  We did the 14 day Barcelona to Athens, we found no inconvenience with passengers leaving and embarking in Rome.

The same with MSC, seems pretty common in Mediterranean.

[Toofarfromthesea]

12 hours ago, sverigecruiser said:

 

We have done two MSC cruises in the Mediterranean where people embarked/disembarked in every port.

 

I don't know how NCL handle it but MSC just roll the meny over seven days, the same menu every friday for example.

 

The taxiline was long when we disembarked in Barcelona so we were glad that not all 6000 passengers disembarked there!

 

Same here, and it turned out to be a blessing.  We were in the Yacht Club and there was a family that seemed very nice, albeit ineffectual, except for their 10 year girl that terrorized the family and staff.  I mean screaming in the grandma's face in the Yacht Club lounge.  At dinner we almost got seated near them - she was no better in the YC dining room - and when we asked for a different table they looked at us knowingly and accommodated us. 

 

The blessing part came when they departed 2 days into our cruise.  Turns out that by the time we boarded she had already been terrorizing everyone for 5 days.  I've never had anything happen that came close to "ruining" a cruise, but 7 days with that toxic little girl and her do nothing about it parents might have done the trick.  She was the worst fellow passenger I ever experienced.

  

[LHT28]

On 7/29/2023 at 12:26 PM, TashaB said:

In June of 2022 we booked the Norwegian Escape 11 day cruise from Barcelona to Trieste September 29, 2024 to October 10, 2024.   Some months later we noticed that NCL is now embarking passengers in different ports.   Sorry, a bit confusing, but here is what they are now selling:

 

September 24 to October 3  Rome to Rome 9 days

September 29 to October 10  Barcelona to Trieste 11 days (the one we are booked on)

October 3 to October 10 Rome to Trieste 7 days

 

Fortunately for us, the pricing we are paying is almost 30% less than what is being asked for the 11 days now.   It seems that NCL wants to sell the 9 days not the 11.   In addition the 7 day cruise is even more expensive!

 

Has anyone experienced sailing on something similar where the cruise starts and ends in different ports?   I have seen 2 but never 3 actual cruises on one ship.  How would NCL handle situations such as menus, entertainment etc.    I have been on 43 cruises over 45 years but this one definitely is new to me!   Any advice greatly appreciated.   BTW we are in the 70 to 75 age bracket, 3 cabins.   

They are probably marketed as  Grand voyages  or similar name   so they have  3 separate cruises   linked  together  like  B2B

You can do B2B  they will usually be different pricing  if the ports in the segment are different 

 

World cruises  operate the same way   they fill so many cabins for the FULL cruise  then segmenters come & go  along  the way

It is nothing new in the cruise world