Back from the Pearl - We won a free cruise!

[jollycruise]

Thanks again everyone. Jollycruise - congrats on your win. Have a great cruise in December. One question. Did NCL take the $1000 off of its web rates, its brochure price or some other price?

 

Marty

 

It was a $1000.00 off the price I found out their website. The employees at the 800# are very friendly and will answer any questions you have. I talked to a Joel (?) I believe and he was great. I hope your planning goes well and enjoy that cruise!! Keep in mind they will not do any price adjustments on the price after you book it. Happy sailing.

[tomconnie14]

I disagree - they did do something wrong - they were unethical in their approach of the deal. When someone wins - they know that all are excited about the $500 dollar savings. Thats what grabs everyones attention. If they never intended to give all of that then they are wrong. That is the problem with many things in society - the deception. Let's just be honest with each other and give what we said we would give and then if we do not plan to let's call it something different.

[johnql]

I disagree - they did do something wrong - they were unethical in their approach of the deal. When someone wins - they know that all are excited about the $500 dollar savings. Thats what grabs everyones attention. If they never intended to give all of that then they are wrong. That is the problem with many things in society - the deception. Let's just be honest with each other and give what we said we would give and then if we do not plan to let's call it something different.

Sorry but I guess we'll have to disagree, then. If the certificate says, "max $500", then anybody who can read knows what the deal is. On a deception scale of 1 to 10, maybe it's a 2 or 3. It's an unfortunate aspect of living in a capitalist society but the reality is that every consumer has to learn how to decipher marketing claims. It's all about the art of deception without crossing over to fraud. This offer was perfectly valid as long as the recipient can somehow take full advantage of the maximum value; however, there is no guarantee that the full $500 is valid for every sailing.

[cruitenn]

We are long time Princess cruisers who tried NCL for the first time and loved it. The Pearl is beautiful ship. The crew is amazing. Freestyle 2.0 is a winner. I would be happy to answer any questions about the cruise, but I have one for all of you. We were very lucky and won the drawing for a free cruise for two. Has anyone else won this prize? The certificate says it's for a week long Caribbean cruise in an inside cabin. One of the assistant cds told us we could use it as a credit of $1000.00 on any NCL cruise. We hope that's true. I wanted to get some insight on past experiences before calling NCL. Thanks.

 

Marty

 

Congratulations!

 

We were on the 2/6/08 sailing of the Gem and Chesquinn's DW Joanne won a cruise from a similar drawing. They are sailing again on the Gem and they mentioned that they will be are using the $1,000 credit they won. So rest assured, it's very real.

 

Joanne did win a cruise we are using the $1000.00 credit on this cruise. We had first booked the Jade but then NCL put in in Europe.

[jz's folks]

Yeah Orchidking!!

We won a free cruise also last January on the Sun while playing bingo :-) We are sailing this January on the Pearl.

 

Jollycruise gave you the best info you've gotten so far..but if I may clarify a couple things that maybe unclear??

~Yes the 1000 is a credit to your cruise. You do not have to take a caribbean cruise even though that's were you won it. If you want to take an Alaskan cruise, you may..NCL will deduct the 1000 from the cost of THAT sailing.

~If you are not picky about a room..ie: inside vs OV. Then take the inside, they will upgrade you to the highest level of inside cabins they have available. I booked and they gave me a room on the 11th floor!! (Catagory II, Which retailed at that time at over 700pp...WAY over the 1000 credit huh??) I'm going to wait till closer to sailing and see if I can upsell to a OV or balcony. (When i booked the sailing was 559pp to start. It's now down to 359pp. Crazy huh??! I do not believe you can just apply the 1000 to any room you want. I believe the 1000 is only a number if you choose NOT to take a caribbean sailing. (NO flames..I could be wrong!! ;))

~As long as you set sail before the certificate expires, your good. Mine expires 1/31/09, but we sail on 1/25...return 2/1. That was fine.

~Again, I took the inside room, therefore there was no port fees, fuel fees, etc. It's FREE!!!

 

And lastly...if you don't get the answers you want from the rep. the first time you call. Hang up and call back. The first person said i had to complete cruise by the 1/31 date..I called back and the girl said as long as it set sail before the 31st we were fine.

 

Oh and lastly, lastly...have fun. And any questions...let me know. I'll help if i can.

[Eeyoregon]

OP: Why don't you mail me that certificate and I will research it for you! :p

 

Congratulations! Happy sailing!

[jollycruise]

Yeah Orchidking!!

We won a free cruise also last January on the Sun while playing bingo :-) We are sailing this January on the Pearl.

 

Jollycruise gave you the best info you've gotten so far..but if I may clarify a couple things that maybe unclear??

~Yes the 1000 is a credit to your cruise. You do not have to take a caribbean cruise even though that's were you won it. If you want to take an Alaskan cruise' date=' you may..NCL will deduct the 1000 from the cost of THAT sailing. They must have changed this since we won. We had to take another Caribbean cruise. We wanted to take another one so we didn't persue it any further. We fell in love with the caribbean so it was perfect for us :D

~If you are not picky about a room..ie: inside vs OV. Then take the inside, they will upgrade you to the highest level of inside cabins they have available. I booked and they gave me a room on the 11th floor!! (Catagory II, Which retailed at that time at over 700pp...WAY over the 1000 credit huh??) I'm going to wait till closer to sailing and see if I can upsell to a OV or balcony. (When i booked the sailing was 559pp to start. It's now down to 359pp. Crazy huh??! I do not believe you can just apply the 1000 to any room you want. I believe the 1000 is only a number if you choose NOT to take a caribbean sailing. (NO flames..I could be wrong!! ;)) You can apply the $1000 off any room. Basically they figure the free cruise as two people in the cheapest inside room which does work out to be $1000. We upgraded to a BA and added another person and then they took the $1000 off our total price.

~As long as you set sail before the certificate expires, your good. Mine expires 1/31/09, but we sail on 1/25...return 2/1. That was fine.

~Again, I took the inside room, therefore there was no port fees, fuel fees, etc. It's FREE!!!

 

And lastly...if you don't get the answers you want from the rep. the first time you call. Hang up and call back. The first person said i had to complete cruise by the 1/31 date..I called back and the girl said as long as it set sail before the 31st we were fine. I agree here, you will get at least two different answers to your questions from ncl. We were told on the ship and by the ncl department (I believe his name was Joel) that our cruise must be completed within a year of the winning date. Seems like just about anywhere....one question, several different answers.

 

Oh and lastly, lastly...have fun. And any questions...let me know. I'll help if i can.

 

I hope you enjoy your cruise!!!!