SeekingKillerWhales!

Ummm, hate to point out specifics, but NCL would absolutely hold you responsible for missing your cruise, regardless of the reason. YOU would be responsible for getting to the next port. Or YOU would be responsible for going through insurance for a refund. Or YOU would be responsible for the cost of the cruise if you had no insurance. NCL would not take a lick of responsibility for that. And of course, there is always the fact that should this scenario happen to a cruiser and they post it here, especially if they are a new cruiser and they are upset and hurting by this situation, YOU would not hesitate to point out how this situation is actually their fault. Just saying.

I wear my pin upside down so everyone knows I'm a swinger.

I have no menus for the MDR (or room service) yet either, but we're over 2 months out. I feel like they showed up closer to the date last May when we cruised, but it's been over a year and I may be misremembering. How long is it to you cruise? And is anyone who is really close to (or already) sailing seeing them? Prof Cruise does a great sample of menus, and most of our stuff was similar. Have fun! (Whoops, just saw you are sailing in September. Hopefully someone going now can answer this. I will in August.)

Please show me where I have been a Debbie Downer and how I am joining them. I will continue to rail against the malcontents who fling their little barbs and personal attacks at every opportunity. It's cruel, it drives away new posters, and it makes other posters afraid to disagree with this (fairly set) group of bullies. Which is probably the point. Just that little knife turning of "you are so stupid", "how dare you even think that/criticize that", "I'm more superior than you are" (regardless if bitter pill has even read the post for comprehension - you know, like mine.) But I will say this, this group is really good at the bullying. And the personal attacks on posters, when they are complaining about an event, a ship, or even a group behaving badly, well, they are really good at that too. I don't know why people like to bully. But I'm not one of them, and I will continue to call them out. And judging by the number of thumbs up and other references that comment got, I'm not the only one tired of far this site has degraded in terms of how some people treat others. So I'll call it out when I see it, and no doubt some personal attack on something unrelated will occur, but I can take it. I'll fight for the ones who really get hurt by bullies. The bullies don't care that someone reads a comment that destroys their confidence or happiness for some period of time. But there are still decent people on the Internet who will call out this poor behavior. I am tired of seeing good people apologize and try to rewrite a comment because some bully came along and manipulated their words. Screw the bullies.

I'm sorry this happened BigPapaGato. That would be disappointing to think you had something and to lose it. Hopefully karma will reward you in some other way this trip, and something unexpected in the good direction happens. Also, thanks for the heads up to never assume an upgrade is in place until you are unpacked in the room. Now knowing this can happen, will mean a little less sting if it happens to me. 🙂

No worries. I reread my response and I wasn't trying to be rude. But balconies are expensive, especially on one income.😄 But I've also seen this advice a lot to new travelers, and sometimes people don't think about economics (just get a Haven cabin!), physical considerations (seasickness), or simply how much use something can get (good chance you will never be in your cabin!) I hope making new travelers aware that going to Alaska is such a great thing that they don't need to save all the way to a balcony, there are some benefits to inside too. I will admit that since this is my 4th trip, and I've been okay with seasickness on the last three, I am bidding for an upgrade to a balcony, but it's a low priority. If I get it great, we'll all hang out there, but if not, we'll just hang out in our favorite spots. 😉 So I am trying to take your advice, but in a way I can afford. Besides, would never willingly be rude to a fellow Bruin!

This is my 4th trip to Alaska and my third in an inside room. Our first was a balcony trip, we spent a lot of money and were almost never in the room. Same with the next two trips, never in the room and went out for the views. And I have limited funds for traveling. My $1500 cabin would have been $5000 for a balcony at the lowest level. So I'll pick not having to share a cabin and being able to travel more often, over having a balcony. A lot of non-wealthy singletons do this. Thanks!

Thanks for the patronizing analysis. But we all bought on the same day and paid exactly the same price. He did not pay for a sail away guarantee cabin. Two of us got to pick our rooms, he did not. The price of the room we gave up was $500 more that day, than the price of the room we got. I made it very clear NCL could do this, just that it was going to leave a bad taste in our mouth. There's no faulty reasoning that many companies with good customer service would not have done something like this. It's just fact. NCL does not. It's just fact. We don't have to like it. It's just fact. We are screaming at CS, we aren't demanding people boycott, we aren't saying we'll never cruise NCL again. But this will factor into our decision on later travel, and again this was not the first time we were unhappy with NCL CS this cruise. I should not have had to wait months for a refunded when they double charged me. Almost 2 months AFTER they listened to the recordings and knew they were in the wrong. But my reasoning is not faulty as I did not say this is what they had to do, I just offered an opinion on how I did not see it as good customer service. And even I am allowed an opinion.

But to be fair I also go on cold weather cruises. If I was coming in sandy from a day at the beach I would be showering. But I just don't feel like I need my bathroom cleaned just because I showered in it. 😉

There's about a 75% chance that your flight may be so late in arriving that you miss your connection and have to stay in ATL anyway. Okay, my percentage might be a tad high. 🙂 But there's always that chance. I'd probably just tell the airline I can't travel anymore that day (with my motion sickness there's a good chance I'd be green anyway) and I'll sort it out in the morning. But honestly, if you can push through to Philly, and spend the night there you can sleep in that am, and get home probably a lot earlier. Should be lots of places to stay close to the airport and you won't have to do all the check-in and airport junk in the morning. Hope you have a great trip!

Bypass the buffet when you get on board and head down to the main dining room (whichever is open) for a relaxing, uncrowded lunch. Bring a highlighter for the daily planner so you don't miss events you want to attend. Don't forget to apply lots of sunscreen and use seasick meds (I use patches) before you need either of them. Add international plans to your phone if necessary. Ditto on the Mudslide!

I think you need to be aware of what kind of traveler YOU are. I've read a lot of complaints on things that would just not bother me. I love cruising because I get a huge selection of cooked food (I hate cooking), someone makes my bed, the scenery is wonderful, and the drinks are tasty. Plus, I am hanging out with people I really like and who tend to go with the flow. We're not picky or demanding, and honestly the cruise is such a good value for the price. Where else can you get your own room (tend to travel with singletons), all meals, entertainment, transportation, and alcohol for $180/day which is what we are paying for our next cruise including tips and packages? (Not excursions, but with the $50 off we booked 7, yes seven, for $435!) We can hang out with each other when waiting in line or to eat. If we don't like a food we just don't eat it, there's more coming. None of us worry about the high sales stuff because we're not interested, and on the rare occasion we meet an unfriendly crew member we just assume they are having a bad day. We're booked on the Sun, which we went on last year, and it's an older ship and I guess worn, but I just don't care. It's beautiful as are the ports. We'll have fun, enjoy ourselves, not need 2x/day service (which never mattered although the pillow chocolates are missed), and talk with fun passengers. You can decide to go and be nit picky and have a miserable time, or watch some videos of ships caught in massive storms with furniture and people flying everywhere before you leave, and travel in gratitude that it's not you. (Unless you get caught in the rare Italian hurricane. :D) If you are really picky, easily upset, or really demanding, this probably is not the time to go on a cruise. (I'd argue it's probably a bad time to travel since most places have low staffing now, but we know it's happening in cruising.) But if you tend to have a good time even when others are complaining, can be flexible and go with the flow, and get some good advice from the helpful posters here, and keep in mind what a great value you are getting (unless you paid more than usual, in which case ignore this) you will probably have a really good time. A floating hotel is always going to have problems, even in best times. How you react to them will decide your cruise. And keep in mind people hate changes, and they tend to complain more about them. You've cruised NCL in the past, it was a good experience. At least give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that people are more likely to emphasize the bad, but that doesn't mean you won't find it good. (Caveat: Again, I could care less about 2x/day service, am not a gourmet, and just love being out and about. Plus I spent a year hosteling in my youth, so it's hard to scare me. But I know too many bitter people to not assume that some, if not most, people make their own bad cruises. 😉 )

I don't shower mid-day. I don't nap. And I don't mess up the bedroom. My room probably takes less than 5 minutes for second service. And there are a lot of people like me. So yes, second service should be faster unless you're a rude slob, have a lot of kids, or need to nap and shower during the afternoon so you can play all night.

I'd rather deal with the constant complainers than the cheerleading troll who are so superior to us mere mortals, and so unforgiving of any post they disagree with. They are truly ruining this site.

Gross. The room was still dirty from the last passengers. That does not seem like a minor issue to me. And further posts tell me what to do if it happens to me, so better that it was posted here. Again, gross and not minor.

They ran out of pineapple magnets?

You said that in relation to my post that included "There is a small group of posters here who constantly demean or belittle people for their inexperience and expectations." If you believed that referred to this post only, that is what you read. I feel the conversation broadened even before that. Again, we can agree to disagree.

Thanks, but as an adult I really can tell when someone is rude.

And just because I infer something doesn't mean they're not implying it either. You really have not seen rudeness on the boards? I have and it doesn't feel the same as it used to.

It does matter if someone is new and they get some of the feedback I've seen. (I am not talking about this post, this went far more general.) I've seen some really mean things said to "educate others" and quite honestly it's hard to swallow.

I am not talking about people who disagree with a poster, or tell them their expectations are unreasonable. I'm talking about the ones who attack the poster personally, imply they are stupid or otherwise for having XYZ opinion, and basically go from post to post adding negativity everywhere they go. Again, this is just a handful of repliers, and over time you get to know them, but they go out of their way to belittle others, and it's tiresome.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one. No one has to thank anyone who is rude or demeaning to them, the only people who feel that way are the bullies/abusers themselves. There is a small group of posters here who constantly demean or belittle people for their inexperience and expectations. And yes, occasionally those expectations are out of line, but that doesn't mean people have make posters who already are feeling bad, feel worse. I'm not talking about the people who are clearly out of their gourd with their expectations, I'm talking people who have an idea of what customer service is and it's not being met. And the gang comes out to tell them how stupid they are for having that expectation. Fortunately it's not a huge amount of posters, and over time you learn who they are and know just to roll your eyes at them. And hope they aren't driving away newbies who need help. (They probably are. People don't come back to places that demean them and they don't have the experience to spot the bullies.) But if someone is more interested in proclaiming their superiority is versus helping a newbie, yeah, no thank you is needed.

It's been resolved. Fortunately the customer service at NCL ended up thinking it a reasonable request too. And you don't have to be thankful to everyone who answers a question here. There is a growing degree of jerkery that should not be responded to.

Agreed. I'm so glad I know all the things that go wrong, especially for beginning cruisers who need air. Will always do it on my own. At least you're not the two people sharing a cabin who got put on different airlines both ways!

I'm sorry. I've had a couple experiences, including it taking two months for a charge that was double billed to me. But they did finally reverse the charge. If it's on the recording a decent business would fix this, and hopefully they will.