blackwing

On 4/20/2024 at 6:21 PM, stellarose33 said:

sailing next summer and want to see what vegetarian options are on board. 

There's always various vegetarian options available on the menu.  I think vegan however is another story, and if you are vegan, you should probably call ahead and ask for options.  One day at lunch in the MDR we sat next to a vegan lady who was having what sounded like a protracted and painful conversation with the waiter who didn't seem to understand what she was asking for.  She asked for the veggie burger when it wasn't on the menu that day, and she kept on insisting that it should always be available.

Finally I believe her order ended up being "Veggie burger if available, no cheese or mayonnaise.  If not, then BLT without bacon or mayonnaise.  If not possible, then a Caesar salad without the cheese or dressing or the parmesan crouton."

It sounded to me like the veggie burger would have had to be a special request if it was requested on a day in which it wasn't widely available.  The BLT is made in advance and it wasn't good enough to simply remove the bacon or scrape off the mayonnaise because some of it would still have touched the bread.  Caesar salad, sounds like she basically just wanted lettuce.

On 4/21/2024 at 4:14 PM, cooncat_mom said:

I had no idea about this menu, and I sail NCL! Actually, it would be nice if they just had a Vegan menu like RCI does. While most people think about those "silly vegans", you would be surprised how many lactose intolerant people there are. I am very lactose intolerant but it is not an allergy (allergies are life threatening. This is not - but it hurts!) so like many lactose intolerant folks (cross contamination is not an issue for many of us) I manage it by making the best choices I can and taking Lactaid which usually works pretty well.  I don't think the staff needs to go through the added work of maintaining my diet so I don't use the special access desk and many others of us don't either. On RCI when I sat down at the table, when I mentioned "I watch out for dairy" they produced their Vegan menu.

 

It was so nice walking into RCI's dining room and having a menu with food I didn't need to figure out easily available! Hopefully, NCL will start incorporating one or two vegan dinners a night into their MDR menu. If not, I'll keep on doing what I do!

My daughter and I are both fairly lactose intolerant and we made sure to always have plenty of lactaid.  It's interesting to me that RCI gave you a vegan menu when you mentioned being lactose intolerant, there should be plenty of options on a regular menu (meat, etc) that aren't vegan but don't have dairy.

We ate at Ocean Blue on Getaway.  We were at sea so the Waterfront seating was closed.  The family in front of us had a reservation but were mostly in shorts and T-shirts.  There was some discussion between them and the host and I think the host prevailed.  The family got seated at the Raw Bar.

I'm curious about the "Goodbye NCL and maybe cruising forever" part.  OP willingly embarked on a transatlantic cruise in April.  Weather wasn't great, there were no "I sailed the Atlantic" t-shirts in the gift shop, food and passengers were slightly strange..... and because of that, he's swearing off cruising forever?

I do sympathize about missing Gibraltar.  But missing a port can happen on any cruise. 

I'm wondering if OP can clarify if the fees were purely to select any regular seats or if he paid for extra legroom or something like that.  Is the nonrefundable part because it is booked through NCL?

Because our last trip to Europe, BA changed our flights.  I had paid $50 per seat to select seats on the original flight.  I applied for a refund on their website and I got it.  But they said I had to wait until after I got home and after the date of the flight had passed.

My teenaged kids are both addicted to Tik Tok and You Tube, they waste so much time watching these stupid videos.  Before we went on the cruise, I told them that each person gets 150 minutes of internet to do whatever they want - check email, play games, try and watch things.  When the 150 is done, they will have no more internet.

My kids learned to do other things on our cruise.  They downloaded free games to play on their phones before we left that did not require wifi or internet.  Still spent time on their phones but they weren't constantly watching Tik Toks.

I guess it depends on how addicted your son is and whether he is willing to listen to you.  My kids complained about not getting the unlimited internet and the option I gave them was that they could either come on the cruise and have 150 minutes, or they could stay home with grandparents and wifi.  They both chose to come on the cruise.

On 4/14/2024 at 6:23 PM, ddlb said:

In addition, the package includes two specialty dining dinners. Do I have to use both of them only for myself or could I use one for me and one for a person dining with me?

 

I am curious about the responses that the FAS specilaty dining is non-transferable.  On our recent cruise, we were a family of four booked into two cabins. Daughter and I were booked in an inside (one meal each) and wife and son were booked in a balcony (two meals each).

On one night, all four of us went to Ocean Blue.  The hostess asked for my card and wife's card, so we used the inside cabin's one day of meals and one day of the balcony's meals.

On another night, wife and I went to Le Bistro.  I made the reservation in my name.  When it came time to pay, wife used her card.  They deducted the two remaining meals left on her card.  In reading the responses here, that meal technically should have been my son's.  They should have known that I wasn't him since the reservation was in my name.  I guess they either overlooked it or didn't care?

Since it was purchased on your behalf with actual money, it should be considered refundable.

As far as casino, from what I have heard, you can use your onboard credit in the sense that onboard credit is used anywhere on the ship.  The money is applied to your account.  You purchase something onboard, it is charged against your account.

However, with the casino, just be aware that if you make a purchase in the casino (i.e., buying cash/chips with your onboard account), I believe it incurs a 3% service charge.

14 hours ago, Menocchio said:

According to a "Tips for Travelers" video, crew would rather you not bus your own table. Or rather, they'd rather not their bosses see you bussing your table because they don't know you're doing it because you're so considerate and not because the crew aren't doing their jobs.

Ahh, that makes sense.  Good explanation.  I won't bus my own table on my next cruise which will hopefully be soon!

You can even text people with iPhones back home on land for free, as long as you are on the wifi.  Make sure you are on airplane mode!  If you aren't on airplane mode and pick up the "Cellular at Sea" or whatever it is called, there could be huge charges from your phone company as you will be on data roaming.

Get on airplane mode.  Get on the wifi.  Then you can text for free to other iPhones.

If you want to hop on the internet and use your 150 minutes you will have to push the "Internet" button on the app.  Make sure you log off, or turn off the wifi momentarily, otherwise the minutes could keep running.

I would call them and ask them.  I would ask them if they can give you the 2nd day since you are in a balcony now.  Or ask if you can "cancel" your original booking and rebook at the new price.  Ask them to waive the cancellation fees since you aren't really cancelling.

And honestly, if the first agent says no, call back and hope the next agent is understanding. 

I would consider booking one balcony and one inside across the hall.  Your older kid is 21 so the two kids could be in the inside cabin by themselves.  Otherwise each parent could take one kid.  Halfway through the cruise, switch cabins so both kids get to be in the balcony cabin for about half the cruise.  That's what my family of four (two teens) just did on Getaway.

It's obviously more expensive than squeezing four of you into a balcony cabin, but you will be a lot more comfortable.  Think about when you do land trips and four of you are in one hotel room.  Biggest issue for us is always that there is only one toilet.  We've started booking two connecting rooms when doing land trips.  The extra space is needed.  

1 minute ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

Isn't that intended for crew use?  Are you sure they want you doing stuff there?

If no one was there, I placed my dirty plates and cup in the bin with the other dirty dishes.  When someone was there, they either took the items from me or I just put them in the bin myself.  The crew said thank you, every time.  I saw a few others bussing their own table as well, and the crew looked appreciative.

3 hours ago, Lois R said:

To the OP, you cruised to Bermuda last month, correct? So, how was your trip and what did you end up doing?

We were on the 3/24 - 3/31 Getaway sailing.  We only ended up getting two days in Bermuda because of rough seas.  On the first day we took a taxi to Warwick Long Bay.  It was pretty deserted.  Saw two man o' war on the beach, although I think they might have just been the float sac because I didn't see any tentacles, I actually thought they were packing material at first.  Then we walked the path to Horseshoe Bay and saw all the little beaches in between.  Stayed there until about 4 and then took the public bus back.

Day two, I wanted to go to St. George but the ship was departing at 6 so in order to make it worth it, I wanted us to take the 9:30 AM ferry  The next ferry was 11 or 11:30 I think, and it takes an hour.  The last ferry back was at 3 or 3:30.  I thought taking the 11 wasn't worth it because it'd be two hours on ferries for three hours of walking around.  I got outvoted on the 9:30.  So we just stayed in the Dockyards area and walked around the shops.  I heard from some that went to St. George that they were disappointed, a lot of places were closed.

If we had a third day I would have insisted on going to either Hamilton or St. George.

3 hours ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

Where is this "cleaning station" that you're talking about?

It's the place where the workers bring all the dirty plates, etc.  Looks like a cubicle with wooden walls.  There's several throughout the buffet.  On Getaway, one of them is very close to where that automatic wine dispenser (that no longer gets used because of FAS I presume) is.

11 hours ago, Aj101 said:

I was on the 3/24 Getaway sailing and couldn't believe the number of dirty drink glasses just left in elevators.  The elevators were always so full, so people leaving them there didn't think about other's safety...  

 

Also another passenger my hubby and I where chatting with in the Garden Cafe made an extremely vulgar comment out of nowhere.  It was a bit shocking.   

 

Perhaps Free at Sea means free for all for some.   I prefer a more structured environment.    I'll probably go with HAL or Celebrity next time.  And won't be traveling on Easter week again either!  Traveling on Easter week is always so grueling.

For some reason, as soon as people step foot on to a cruise ship, many seem to turn into lord and lady of the manor and every crew member on board has become their servant.  People treat the buffet like a sit down restaurant.  I think it is more like a counter service / fast food restaurant.  At McDonald's or Chipotle, you get your food, you find an empty table, you sit down.  You eat.  When you are done eating, the natural thing to do is to take your trash and baskets and utensils to the garbage can, where there is also a bin to collect items that aren't disposable like plates and baskets and utensils.

Why doesn't this get done by more people at the buffet?  The buffet staff does go around and collect empty plates from guests.  But if I was ever done and there were no staff around, I would take my dirty plates and cup and utensils to the cleaning station.  Hardly anyone seems to do this.

In addition to cups in the elevator, how about the cups and plates in the hallways?  Some people don't even place them right outside their door, they push them out a little so half of the plate is in the pathway.  Is it so people can trip over them?  I never left plates or cups in the hall, I would always leave on the balcony.  In an inside room, I just left on the desk.

People seem to love to leave cups and plates all over the place.  I don't know why people seem to like to leave bowls of melting ice cream at the top of the stairs.  Or cups in the elevator.  One time I saw two teens walking towards the stairs.  There was a crew member in the area who was cleaning.  One kid actually took his drink glass and set it down against the wall and then kicked it over in front of the crew member.  The friend actually said something.  He picked up all the ice by hand and put it back into the glass and apologized to the crew member, saying "I don't know why he would do something like that, sorry".  That kid has good parents.

On 4/4/2024 at 12:13 PM, dcipjr said:

Hello CruiseCritic!

 

We just got off the Getaway's 7-day sailing from New York to Bermuda, so I figured I'd post a brief review with my thoughts.

 

We're a family of 3: my wife and I are both 39, and our daughter is 6.

 

Booking

We are from Philly, so we've done a ton of cruises out of New York to Bermuda. Our first was on the Star in August of 2012, celebrating our first anniversary. We had cruised aboard the Epic for our honeymoon and loved it, and wanted to do another cruise, so we booked a last-minute inside cabin to Bermuda and had an absolute blast. We've been cruising to Bermuda ever since -- and so far, only with NCL.

 

Even though we're seasoned Bermuda veterans, we've only ever been there between May and October. Late March was a solid month before our earliest trip there, and we knew going in that it wouldn't be as warm as our normal summer trips, especially the water temperature.

 

Our first inclination was to go to the Caribbean instead of Bermuda; we're already booked for a Bermuda cruise on the Joy later this year, and the Caribbean would be warmer. But there were no sailings to the Caribbean out of NYC in mid to late March, and prices out of Florida were sky-high. If we wanted to cruise NCL, Bermuda was our only viable option.

 

We initially booked an inside guarantee, and put in a $200 per-person bid to a balcony, which was accepted 6 days before the cruise -- yay!

 

Delayed Departure and Embarkation

Two sailings prior to our cruise, the Getaway had some "mechanical" issues, and was late getting into New York after coming up from the Caribbean. We watched the sailing just prior to ours with great interest, to see whether the mechanical issues would continue to plague the ship.

 

It didn't appear that they did, but the ship was late getting back into New York due to rough seas.

 

We got messages the night before the cruise telling us that the ship wouldn't arrive until noon on Sunday, and that we shouldn't arrive at the pier until 3 or 4 PM on embarkation day.

 

We were driving to New York anyway, so no biggie -- we simply delayed our departure for New York until 2:30 PM, and got to to the terminal at 4:30 PM, securing one of the last parking spots on the pier -- whew!

 

It turns out that many people showed up well before 3 PM, and the parking at the pier very nearly filled up.

 

The flip side of this is that we cruised right through embarkation. There was basically no line, and we were through embarkation and on the ship with no waiting -- it took a half-hour at most.

 

That was great, but we did miss a solid 5 hours of our embarkation day -- that was a disappointment, since that time onboard prior to sailing is always so full of excitement. I missed that. But hey, we're still on vacation,so let's go!

 

Delayed Arrival to Bermuda

Unfortunately, Mother Nature decided to continue to throw monkey wrenches our way.

 

We got the announcement on Monday that our arrival to Bermuda would be delayed 1 day, until Wednesday.

 

Our original itinerary had us in port from 8 AM on Tuesday until 7 AM on Friday, which is a lot of time in Bermuda -- and we were really looking forward to that.

 

We had two rough sea days. Many people were sea-sick. We were packing Bonine, ginger candies, and sea bands. They helped stave off nausea, but they don't do anything about the ship lurching about. It made it harder to sleep and walk around.

 

Then, when we got to Bermuda, we got word that we'd be leaving on Thursday evening instead of Friday morning -- a further reduction to our time on the island.

 

They gave us $200 OBC ($100 for the late arrival, $100 for the early departure). This is much-appreciated, but it's a real bummer that you can only use non-refundable OBC for items that are marked up. I would have loved to have used the OBC to buy a CruiseNext certificate, but that is no longer permitted.

 

Bermuda

Bermuda itself was absolutely lovely. The weather was a balmy 72°F, and the water temperature was a chilly 68°F, but we still visited the beaches and my daughter played in the wet sand.

 

The island is just a wonderful, wonderful place. We'd come back in March -- but honestly, I don't think we'd cruise there again in March. It's just too much of a gamble with the weather on the way down: the past couple sailings and the current sailing were also affected by weather.

 

It does raise the question why NCL isn't offering better itineraries out of NYC for Spring Break.

 

On the Cutbacks

OK, so everyone on CruiseCritic was talking about cutbacks, to the point where I started actively avoiding the boards so that I wouldn't poison my own opinion of the cruise before we even set sail.

 

What's the verdict?

 

Well, there have been cutbacks for sure, mostly around food and entertainment.

 

I'll go into both.

 

Food

We noticed a decline in MDR food quality, as well as the number of options available on the menu. The right side of the menu has been reduced from 6 or 7 entrees in 2023 to 5, and the left side lost an entree as well.

 

There's now a big section of the menu devoted to food you can order from Cagneys.

 

Want lobster in the MDR? Well good news for you -- you can get it! Bad news is that it's an upsell.

 

And that big section of food you can order from Cagneys conveniently means they don't have as much space to put regular entrees there.

 

As for the food itself, it was OK, but it wasn't great. We have always been fine with the MDR options, but this time I think I would have been really disappointed if I didn't have a couple Latitudes vouchers for specialty meals.

 

Hard to put my finger on exactly what was wrong. The ingredients seemed lower quality. The MDR food just was bland in general.

 

The buffet fared a little better, but certain things I enjoyed for breakfast were gone. Everyone will complain about the hashbrowns being gone, but the country potatoes were just not good this time around. They're soggy and disappointing. The old ones were crispier and just better.

 

The specialty restaurants, on the other hand, were still as good as ever. We dined in Ocean Blue, Moderno, and Le Bistro, and enjoyed them all.

 

I will point out, though, that the mascarpone & caramelized onion bread in Ocean Blue is gone...gone...which was cause for much sadness for both me and my wife, who absolutely loved that bread.

 

Food quality otherwise in the specialties was every bit up to par.

 

O'Sheehans has only ever been average food, but sometimes you just want a nonfancy burger, and it certainly still fits the bill. I don't think food quality has declined here, but there do appear to be somewhat fewer options than before.

 

The kids menu changed. They eliminated the chicken tenders, hot dog, chicken noodle soup. They added roasted tomato soup, a veggie taco, and a chicken stir fry. My daughter is still in the Only Wants Chicken Nuggets, Hot Dogs, and Kraft Mac 'n Cheese stage (though she's slowly getting better), so this was a bit of a blow. Though we were sort of happy to not let her eat hot dogs all week. At least the pizza is still there.

 

Entertainment

OK, so somehow I made it through almost 20 NCL cruises without having seen Howl at the Moon, and damn have I been missing out!!! They were so good. I saw the final show, came in at the start, and wound up staying the entire time until 1 AM. Absolutely brilliant. Not to be missed if you love music.

 

The comedians were fun; I don't think Levity overall is as good as Second City used to be, but still really solid, and I enjoyed seeing them for a couple shows.

 

Out of morbid curiosity, I went to see Wheel of Fortune, and it was absolutely dreadful. It's sort of a travesty that it's considered prime-time entertainment on a ship of this size. It was basically the cruise director shouting into the mic, and a virtual on-screen wheel. Come on, NCL, you couldn't even come up with a real wheel to spin?

 

The contestents had obviously never seen the show nor had they ever studied letter frequency in the English language. RLSTNE, anyone? One of them even solved the puzzle without spinning the wheel, which would have been impressive if she didn't just lock in a $0 winning. Thankfully it was over in about 30 minutes.

 

Woof.

 

Onboard Activities

Something I learned this cruise -- the Getaway is a much better warm-weather ship than cold weather. We are so, so lucky that we upgraded to a balcony, because at least we could watch the sea on the sea days, while we read books and popped Bonine. If we had stayed in our inside cabin, I don't know what we would have done.

 

When the weather's not good, there's not a whole lot to do on the ship during the day that doesn't involve purchasing spa treatments, art, or bingo cards.

 

My daughter went to the kids club once, and enjoyed it, but the lines to get in were so long that we didn't really bother trying to drop her off there. Spring Break, after all.

 

Service

Service was fine. Not as good as we had in the past, but honestly, it's Spring Break and I think the crew was sort of just trying to get through it all. I get it.

 

One MDR waiter had us cracking up laughing about all the stumbling around that the crew had been doing due to the rough seas. They were over it by the time we were onboard. Multiple crew members said to me that they couldn't wait to get back to the Caribbean, since the back and forth to Bermuda had been so brutal.

 

Our cabin attendant was great. I miss the days where there were more cabin attendants and staterooms were usually done by 11 AM or lunchtime at the latest. 4 PM cabin makeup is a bit of a drag -- and that's on NCL, not the attendants.

 

I said before and I'll say again that the cabin attendant is the most visible member of the crew for almost everyone onboard. If they're overworked, people will notice. I noticed.

 

Overall Thoughts

We had a good time. It wasn't the best cruise we ever took, being honest. The days in Bermuda were by far the best part -- it sort of reminded us "this is why we're here".

I think we'll skip winter / very early spring sailings to Bermuda from here on out, though. The weather out of NYC is too much of a gamble. Granted, even Florida had their issues that same week, but you have to go with the best possible option.

 

After nearly 20 cruises, I'm sort of feeling like I've been-there-done-that with NCL, and the prices have gone up significantly. In fact, the rate for the third person in the room was higher than the first and second person -- which was something I never saw before!

 

We've got an August cruise on the Joy coming up (to Bermuda...booked last summer). I could cancel it, but I think I'll keep it. We love Bermuda, and missed snorkeling and swimming while we were there, and it felt good as we sailed away from the island to know we'd be coming back in a few short months.

 

But I think after this, we'll take a break from NCL and try some other lines: perhaps Celebrity or HAL.

 

Let me know if you have any questions, etc. Happy to answer.

Thanks for your review, I was on this sailing as well.  This was our first time travelling out of New York and it was definitely different experiencing the really rough seas.  I got seasick on Monday and my daughter got seasick on Friday.  Neither of us had ever gotten seasick on cruises before.  I agree with you that it kind of stinks when the weather is cold/windy and everything on 15 and 16 is closed.  I put on my fleece and sat on the deck chairs against the window, sort of protected against wind, and did some reading.  But it wasn't ideal.

We didn't go to anything in the theater besides Million Dollar Quartet and Burn the Floor, so I have no idea what it was like.  I had a feeling Wheel of Fortune was going to be a disaster, it's kind of embarrassing that NCL considers this to be worthy of occupying a prime nighttime slot in the theater.  This should have been something done during the day there.  I'm not a big comedy show fan so I skipped all the Levity Entertainment, curious if they are any good.  I really think that instead of Wheel of Fortune, they could have moved MDQ's "Broadway Unplugged" show to the theater instead.  There were so many people that couldn't get into the Illusionarium for their two shows there on one night only.

The buffet, I was looking for hash browns as well, came here after we got back and see that it's apparently something of a sore subject.  Agree with you that the country potatoes were not good.  The corned beef hash, I've never seen corned beef hash that looks like that.  It seemed like it was the country potatoes with some kind of mystery meat in it.  Whatever it was was really brown looking, not looking like corned beef at all.

We enjoyed the cruise a lot overall.  It was great to spend time together as a family.  I would sit on a cold pool deck reading rather than going to work and eating even "ok but not great" food every day if it means we don't have to cook it or wash the dishes.

We were off Getaway last Sunday.  I got a few MDR reservations in advance, others I made as soon as we boarded.  It definitely made a difference.  With a reservation, we were seated right away.  Without a reservation, we were given a pager and had to wait about 20 - 30 minutes.

There were two host desks at each dining room.  One was to line up and get a pager.  The other was if you had a reservation or if your pager buzzed.

5 hours ago, Asawi said:

I certainly do not! Why would you think that?

I do as you should: I fill a glass and transfer the water to the bottle. Or I refill it in my bathroom. 

I'm not American so I'm not addicted to ice. 😁

Because I've seen others who are trying to refill disposable plastic bottles do just that.  The opening is so narrow and some think it's easier to just stick the bottle under the spout.  It's good that you don't do that, and I guess it makes sense if you don't use ice that you wouldn't have to worry about trying to fit ice cubes through the narrow opening.

5 hours ago, Asawi said:

I just thought I'd chime in on the "refillable water bottle" subject: I do not own any expensive refillable water bottle. I use empty soda/water bottles and on cruises also the carton my gold status gives me. They are all "refillable". And should I not want to take them back from a tour I can just discard them. I can also keep a couple of them in the fridge, should I want to.

Do you stick it right under the spout?  Because you're not supposed to.  The buffet staff often tells people they need to get water with a glass and fill their bottle from the glass.  Seems more difficult to fill a narrow neck disposable bottle with a glass.  And you can't get ice into them.

While I carried around a Hydroflask because I could put hot tea into it, my kids used their ubiquitous $5 green Gatorade squeeze bottles that many kids who play high school sports have.  Refillable bottles don't need to be expensive.

3 hours ago, DCwom said:

We usually get some water bottles for excursions, and yes we also have reusable water bottles, but sometime you want to just travel light. We're on the POA in May with ports everyday, so we can probably buy water in the ports from time to time, does anyone know if they give you grief for returning with multiple water bottles from off-ship?

You're not supposed to be allowed to bring back any outside food or water onto the ship.  I saw security make a guy throw out an entire uneaten wrapped sandwich that it seems like he had just bought.  That said, we filled our water bottles on the ship, took them off ship, and boarded back with them and the crew didn't say anything.  I was prepared to empty the water but they didn't make us do so.

On 3/26/2024 at 4:53 PM, 3red7s said:

how did you like horseshoe bay?  we are looking for a beach that has calm waters

We were there last week and really enjoyed it.  It's the iconic, most well known Bermuda beach.  It's beautiful and my daughter and I really liked the rock formations and the little cave/inlet on the right side.  However, I wouldn't say the waters are calm, especially if you venture further out.  Someone drowned last Wednesday 3/27, so if you're looking for calm, I would avoid.

On 3/25/2024 at 5:59 PM, Zellhouse said:

What is the shuttle to Horseshoe beach and how/where do I get it.

When you are leaving, you can't miss them.  The drivers are constantly hawking at you to get passengers.

We are a family of four and we took a taxi to Warwick Long Bay (just a little further than Horseshoe) and then walked the path to Horseshoe.  Really enjoyable.  If you have four people in your party, I would recommend taking a taxi from Dockyards to Warwick or Horseshoe.  It costs just a little more, but you get your own ride, and best of all, our taxi driver was constantly narrating and pointing out places of interests and giving us facts about the island and answering our questions.  It was informative and well worth it.

2 minutes ago, MicCanberra said:

You don't know what cabin category she may have had or how long her cruise/ cruises were. We are doing a similar set of cruises next year and have just a balcony and it will be close to that for all 3 cruises.

Agreed.  And you make a good point, she could easily have been booked on another cruise afterwards, perhaps Barcelona to Rome.  The daughter says her mom saved $20,000 for this trip of a lifetime, I think that she should be taken at face value.  But I still think the daughter doesn't have any right to complain about NCL "dumping" her mom in a hospital alone.  Somebody should have been travelling with her.

The daughter and son-in-law relied on an Apple Air Tag to let them know where Mom was?  What a joke.  Mom should have been providing regular updates.  They said they noticed that the Air Tag stayed in Sao Tome even though the ship had moved on.  They said they didn't hear from Mom until Mom used someone's phone to call them.  If Mom didn't have a phone or didn't know how to communicate with them back home, she definitely shouldn't have been travelling alone.

8 minutes ago, Mike07 said:

I think some are almost giddy at this group's troubles to prove a point that rules need to be followed.

I don't think giddy is the right word.  I think maybe disgusted is a better word.  For me, I am disgusted at the attempt by the lead couple to blame everything on NCL.  I am disgusted at the fact that they contacted media immediately to get their name and photo splashed all across international news.  I'm disgusted that the woman claims she wasn't sure if she wanted to get back on board because she didn't feel "safe" about how NCL handled this, but then promptly got on board once it became apparent that NCL wasn't going to give her any additional money beyond the Gambia to Senegal money.  And I'm disgusted that even though they are back on board, they are still contacting the media and doing interviews.

4 minutes ago, Mike07 said:

 

$20k? $40k?

The cruise in question is not RSSC

It was the 80 year old woman's daughter who said she saved $20,000 for this trip.  I'm not sure of the actual cost.

15 minutes ago, LongIsland-Cruiser said:

That would be an incredibly childish thing to do.  But given their behavior so far, you have probably pegged them right.

 

It's interesting how many people think that those in the service industry are there to be their punching bags.

Last week on embarkation day on Getaway, the couple next to me at Guest Services was screaming at the employee because they didn't get the onboard credit promised to them by their travel agent.  The employee was trying to explain to them that this was something that needed to have been purchased for them on their behalf by their travel agent.  The wife wasn't having it at all.  She was screaming loudly "this is UNACCEPTABLE!  We were told we were going to be given this credit, you are going to give us this credit RIGHT NOW and we are not leaving here until you FIX IT!"

The employee had the patience of a saint.  He said calmly, "as I've already explained to your husband, since this was credit promised to you by your travel agent and not by us, we cannot do anything about this, you will have to take this up with your travel agent".  Then the husband got into it and said "you're going to call the travel agent right now and you will speak to them and fix this".  The employee said "you can certainly use our phone and call them, but as it is 4:30 pm on a Sunday, they are probably not open."  Husband thrust the travel agent's card to the employee.  Employee put his phone on the counter and invited husband to call himself.  Of course, no answer.  What a great way to start a cruise!

That was on Getaway.  Nowhere near the price point of these Dawn cruisers.  In the article about the 80 year old medical disembarkee, the daughter said she spent $20,000 on this vacation.  So the Campbells spent at least $40,000.  They seem to think that spending money gives them the right to continue to demonize NCL with their version of their story and I'm sure hope they don't take it out on any employees.  I really do hope that people onboard are giving them some grief.

2 minutes ago, LongIsland-Cruiser said:

I don't want to read 27 pages of this, especially as I am seeing people claim that "The customer is always right!  NCL should have let them come back at their own pace".

 

But I am curious....Would it benefit NCL to just ban this couple?  Not to put to fine a point on it, but they purposely broke the rules, went directly to the media with their grievances, and have basically been nothing but a horrible headache and PR disaster.  And at no point have they ever admitted that they could have done better.  Their basic attitude is "I am always right, rules don't apply to me".  So you can imagine how they flout other rules and treat other passengers/crew members.

 

If I was NCL I would do a full pushback and say "Not only did we leave your late ass behind, but we are banning you for life for trying to ruin the vacations of 2998 other passengers with your actions."

 

Sometimes the best defense is a good offense.   I really think hotels, planes, cruises, stores, and sporting stadiums should start standing up for the vast majority of people that follow rules and try to be cognizant of the OTHER paying customers they are with.  I would have much more respect for any business that said "This person was abusive to staff, wouldn't follow the rules, threatened the vacations of others, and so we decided we didn't want them on future cruises."

 

I wouldn't have let them come back on the ship at all.  Fly them home.

 

But maybe I am too harsh.  I am getting to the point though going to public events fills me with dread because I know 5000 people will behave, and 2 will try to ruin everything.

I'm with you.  If I were NCL I would ban them for life.  Hundreds of people get left behind on the docks each year and yet almost none of these pier runners are contacting the media and blitzing the morning news shows with their stories of how they got left behind.  They reek of entitlement and they have possibly committed slander and libel against NCL.