The Traveling Man

Wow, that's really a change. You got that directly from NCL's group coordinator?

That's understandable, as my wife sometimes gets rather adamant about traveling in first class, as well. Unfortunately it means that you won't be able to use the card to it's fullest advantage for yourself. Any chance you have relatives or friends who might want to join you on a cruise? Maybe they don't want to pony up for the cost of a Haven, but would be happy with a Balcony. You could book an OV for them, use points to upgrade them to Balcony, put the cost on your card, and then either give the room to them as a gift or let them repay you under the table. That way you could maximize the value of your World Points. As others have noted, you have several years to use your points before they expire, so even if you can't think of someone who might join you currently, you might find a friend, neighbor, or relative in the future who would enjoy cruising with you. Just a thought.

Yes, a certain subcategory of OV is required to be able to use the points to upgrade to a particular subcategory of Balcony. We usually try to upgrade at the same time we make our initial reservation for a cruise. We do our research into the type of cabin we want and which ones appear to be available, then we call our PCC. We explain that we want to book an OV and use World Points to immediately upgrade to a Balcony, so she calls someone at the World Points desk and we have a three-way conference call. That way we get the correct OV for the type of Balcony we want. It also means that we have the opportunity to ask for a specific Balcony stateroom in a location that we prefer. We sometimes have received a little push back from the WP agent, but with a little cajoling we always have been able to get a Balcony stateroom that we like.

You may want to check some of the recent posts on the thread dedicated to the subject of the NCL Master Card. That thread is pinned near the top of the first page of this NCL forum. There have been some recent posts there about a temporary offer of 25,000 bonus points. I'm not sure if that offer is still current, but it has been made several previous times.

I think that most frequent cruisers have had one of those. I know that we have.

On each of our recent cruises, when we stopped by the Cruise Next desk on embarkation day to sign up for Latitudes benefits, we were told that they would not be offering the Sail and Sustain Mixology Experience because there were only two Diamond Latitudes members on the ship's manifest and no Ambassadors. We were the two Diamonds, hence the senior Latitudes members on board those cruises. We usually travel in a Balcony stateroom. We haven't sailed in a Suite or the Haven since before COVID. I also have volunteered to coordinate the Cruise Critic Meet & Greet on several of our recent cruises, so the GM and the Group Coordinator usually look me up on embarkation day to check on arrangements for the M&G.

Sorry this reply is a bit late in coming, but here goes. I have used WPs to upgrade 11 times, usually OV to Balcony, but once a double meta of Inside to Balcony. I've always tried to get at least 25% return, find it acceptable to use points for 20%, and once reluctantly accepted 15% when the DW insisted. My overall average is about 25% and my maximum was over 50% on a three week repositioning cruise when the Balcony was going for more than $2500 pp above the cost of an OV.

Thank you for your report. Sorry to hear that you got the cold shoulder on board. Our experience has been quite different. You said that you haven't had dinner with an officer in several years. We always make a point of signing up for this Latitudes perk. We frequently have the opportunity to get to know the GM and almost always are paired up with one or another of the senior officers. On our last three cruises there have been no Ambassadors on board, so we were the senior Latitudes members. As a result, they usually treat us like royalty.

We have used the laundry service at least two dozen times on NCL cruises. Only once did it take more than a day. That was post COVID, when the stateroom attendants were each assigned more cabins and only provide service once per day. The instructions with the laundry ticket say (or at least they used to say) that if you turn in your laundry by 9:00 AM one day you will receive it back the next day before 5:00 PM. It occasionally has arrived later in the evening than 5:00, but except for that one time it always was returned the following day. The time it was late we had left the bag in our room before we went to breakfast, but our stateroom attendant didn't get around to cleaning our room until late that afternoon. The bag just sat on the bed all day, hence the extra day to return it to us. It's possible that other passengers have experienced similar delays post COVID. The lesson we learned from this is that we now always forewarn our steward that we intend to leave a laundry bag for him the following day. I think the heads-up has helped avoid further delays.

On our first cruise to Italy about a decade ago we booked a private tour for Livorno. There were five of us in a small van that probably had a max capacity of eight. Since it was a small vehicle, the driver / guide was able to park right next to the tower in Pisa, maybe a block from the tower itself. That tour also included a trip to Florence, also with several stops right next to the Duomo, the Uffizi Gallery, etc. We were able to avoid the typical 10 to 15 minute walks to and from the bus parking lots.

Part of the OP's original post was "is it relatively easy to get a refund on the extras I prepaid for?" I think that must have been the OP's question that @DorothyB was trying to answer.

I like to press wildflowers.

I'm not sure whether BOA would simply reinstate your old account or set you up with a new one. If you want to start a new account to get the bonus points, though, you might try signing up under your spouse's name. They might still match your address info to find your old records, but it's worth a try, I suppose. Since you booked through a TA, your TA should be your contact with NCL rather than you reaching out directly to NCL. Assuming you apply for the credit card and are approved prior to the final payment date for your cruise, yes you can use the NCL BOA World Points Master Card to pay for the balance of your cruise and earn the triple points for those charges. The points will post to your account (or your spouse's account) at the end of the billing cycle in which they are incurred. Once they have posted, if you have a total of at least 30,000 points, you can ask for an upgrade. Since you are using a TA, that probably will mean a four way conference call with you, your TA, an NCL reservations clerk, and an NCL World Points specialist. It may be a bit convoluted, but you should be able to get it done. I would recommend doing some research first to learn which staterooms in your preferred upgrade category may still be available. We usually have been able to get them to assign a room of our choice, but they do reserve the right to make an arbitrary room assignment in the new category.

You didn't mention how much time your cruise will be docked. Note that for the last couple of years, NCL ships dock at Ward Cove, several miles north of the Ketchikan city center. If you're pressed for time, I would suggest a tour to Totem Bight Park. It's north of Ward Cove, so you'll miss out on things like Creek Street and the Lumberjack Show.

A couple of years ago NCL reassigned login credentials to thousands, if not tens of thousands, of MyNCL account holders. They did so without prior notice. If you tried to log in you just got an error message. NCL evidently established some new standards for what they thought constituted a secure login ID. Anyone whose account name did not conform to NCL's new standards got their credentials changed to the email address that NCL had on file for them. Personally I would rather a hacker be able to find my name rather than my email address. There are hundreds of other men with the same first and last name as mine, but no one else shares my email address.

My wife frequently ordered the duck. It always looked interesting and she always said she really enjoyed it. I was planning on trying it next time. Oh well, he who hesitates is lost.

Back in the good old days they use to have door prize drawings, usually a bottle of wine and some bingo cards, but once we also received a coupon for free laundry. They stopped doing that years ago, but we still usually attend the party, mostly out of habit, I suppose. The one real reason we still go, though, is to meet the officers. We have traveled with NCL enough that there usually are one or more senior officers that we know from a previous cruise. We always try to get to know the GM. You never know when having friends in higher places might pay benefits.

Of the items left on the menu at Le Bistro, Dover Sole may be the best I've had. I really miss the rack of lamb. The current lamb offering doesn't hold a candle to it, IMO. The Lobster Thermidor is also very good, but the $25 surcharge usually makes me shy away.

It seems that my tongue-in-cheek attempt at a humorous yet deadpan take on the juxtaposition of "scallops" and "poop", which clearly were two separate sentences, fell flat. I guess I need to hone my act at the comedy club a bit more. Sorry you didn't get the punch line.

Yes, but NCL is often slow to update all the places on their website where something is mentioned. The left hand doesn't seem to know what the right is doing.

Maybe that waiter didn't get the memo.

Well, there went three of my favorites, the tuna poke, dynamite roll, and salmon roll. Darn.

I'll really miss the oysters and the tuna. The variety of having a four course meal instead of just three courses will be missed, but I'll get over it. I really enjoy potatoes au gratin, but as someone else noted, they sometimes were served cold, not very appetizing.

This discussion puts me in mind of a scene from the movie City Slickers. Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern, and Bruno Kirby are on horses, driving a herd of cattle. To pass the time, Billy's character is attempting to explain to Daniel's character how VCRs work. For the younger members of this forum, please ask your parents what a VCR is. So Billy keeps telling Daniel how to record one program while at the same time watching a different program live on the TV. Stern just doesn't get it. He keeps saying that it isn't possible, that you only can watch the same program that you are recording. Finally Bruno Kirby's character interrupts, saying "Enough! He doesn't get it! He'll never get it! By now even the cattle can program a VCR." I feel like Bruno Kirby.

I assume that you are being ironic or facetious and actually mean the wrong restaurants. Properly cleaning any seafood prior to serving it is de rigueur in all reputable restaurants.