Booking onboard

Is there any advantage to booking your next cruise while on board ship?

I am interested in this question as well. We're planning on rebooking while on the Spirit next week. But I'd like to know ahead of time if there are any secrets I should be aware of.

I'm not sure of the deals but do your homework first ... They can charge more for the the cruise than what you see online but you may get a break considering the onboard credit you get.

Also, they can be quite disorganized on board for this service and do you want to waste several hours onboad waiting and reserving ? Plus, they 'lost' the paperwork for us and tried to book us at a higher rate !! What a hassle for our TA to get the rate they quoted and we signed, for 3 couples. I love the Dawn and the service onboard but NCL customer service is just awful, be forwarned ...

Insist on getting copies of the paperwork even though they ensure it will show up in your cabin that night (it didn't show up and the next day was disembarcation day so 'no service', it took several months and many phone calls to resolve)... We could have just given up but it's the principle, ya know .. I wanted the cruise at the rate we booked ... :mad:

We got a slightly higher rate quoted online but got $125 p/cabin OBC ... It would have been a 'wash' with the higher rate they tried to charge us ... We saved $100 p/cabin and was not worth the lost time onboard and all the hassle ...

Can you transfer your booking made on board to your TA and still get the OBC and possibly a lower rate?

Hope it is like Princess where you pay only $100 for a future cruise anytime within the next 5 years I believe. You also get obc depending on what room you book. You can also transfer to your own TA anytime you like and get their discounts.

Can't beat it..

NCL DAWN....9/25/05

Hope it is like Princess where you pay only $100 for a future cruise anytime within the next 5 years I believe.

Unfortunately you do have to put down a full deposit from what I remember. You can transfer to your local TA. I have heard some say that you can keep the onboard credit, and others say you can't. The reason I like booking while on board is that their people know the best cabins and locations and can answer any questions about the ship without having to look it up and get back to you.

Can you transfer your booking made on board to your TA and still get the OBC and possibly a lower rate?

We did it with no problem, that is tranferred thebooking. But the TA got us a better rate. The chap on the ship seemed confused and the rate he gave us seemed high, so we contacted a TA later and things got straightened out. Think we kept the OBC but really don't clearly remember.

We booked a future cruise in April while onboard the Sea. We will never do that again. First you have to sign up for an appointment. Then when you come back for your appointment time, they may or may not be ready for you. There was a family group of 11 people who took up almost 2 hrs when appointments were scheduled for 30 minutes. That put the guy behind. We were told that we would get a group rate with an onboard credit. We never received anything in writing before we left the ship. We were told that we would receive an e-mail confirmation after getting back home. We did. However, our booking was entered into the computer as a regular booking -- no discount but it did have the onboard credit. When we called customer service, the girl my husband talked to pretty much said "oh well too bad." No offer to try to correct the booking. When he told her he could cancel and rebook with an online agency for much less, she said go ahead.

We also found out the the "group" rate we were quoted onboard was only $30 per person less than the NCL website offered. The confirmation was not even for the price we were quoted. Too many opportunities for things to get messed up booking onboard. We wasted too many hours of our cruise for nothing. Never again!!!

We booked a balcony on the Star for next year August while sailing on the Dawn this August. It was pretty painless, and the rate was in line with what Travelocity offered plus they threw in $125 in onboard credit. So the key advantage here is the $125 in credit. The booking was automatically transfered to the TA that we booked our Dawn cruise with; we got a call from the TA two days after we returned from the Dawn informing us of that along with a confirmation from the TA a day later.

The TA informed us that if the rate drops by May 20th (which is when the final payment is due) it would possible to adjust the rate, but if we do so we would lose the $125 in onboard credit. Basically, the whole booking process was painless. The deposit is $250 pp for cruises up to and including 7 days and $400 pp for cruises 8 days or more, if I remember correctly. The one thing we didn't book onboard was the airfare, because the rate they offered us was significantly higher than what we can get from a certain discount airline a few months before the cruise.

We booked another cruise while on the Dawn 8/14. Based on the quick internet check I did onboard we saved about $200.00 from the lowest price I could find online. In addition some of the sailings are not avalible to the public yet. We also received a $200.00 onboard credit with our new booking. Also note that they will transfer the booking automatically to your previous travel agent, unless you sign a release. Also note when I came home I did confirm the fact that we received a very good deal !

Hope this helps !

Tom