travelgalnow

Sure, I get that you can calculate. Just sayin' it would be more transparent not to have to do the calculation. Just state it up front. 🙂

Mmmm. I dunno. If the service is bad, people will complain, and then you will lose your job. Take Disneyland, the Happiest Place on Earth. Employees seem pretty happy there, and they aren't tipped. However, Disneyland is very expensive now! I went to a restaurant in New Zealand, and there was no tipping. Service same as USA I thought. One thing I am wondering though. If the price keeps going up on cruising, at some point it will only be for the wealthy. Maybe that's where this is going.

Thanks for the heads up on this! I've been doing some research, and it appears I may have some refundable and some non-refundable OB credit. So I may be able to use the refundable credit toward my service charges.

This may not be the thread to start this discussion but wouldn't it be wonderful if all the cruises just stated the full price of the cruise that included the "service charge." It really is part of their wages.

On other cruise lines, I've always been able to apply non-refundable OBC to the DSC. It just shows as a credit on the bill and when all the charges are added the net result to pay is the difference. Maybe Norwegian is different? I've cruised with them before, but I can't remember if I had OBC the last time. 🤔 I should probably look that up.

So, is the form you fill out a reimbursement form? And you receive the difference back after the cruise? or do they change it onboard? I just talked to my husband about it. It sounds like he is willing to go onboard and argue, if necessary. 😅It's just not cool to change the rate after you have booked and are all locked in.

Have you done it recently on NCL though? And I don't want to remove it entirely. I just want to pay the amount I contracted to pay. Not the new amount. And I don't want to pay it in advance of the cruise.

Yes, but would they really do it? I'm sailing in January, and I also planned to use my onboard credit toward the service charges. If you read on their website, and as DaCruiseBug posted, they will give you a hard time about adjusting the service charges unless you say there is a service issue and they can't rectify it. I guess I could put up a stink about it and maybe they would adjust it. That's not what I want to do. And they may not agree to adjust it anyway. And according to the FAQ on the Norwegian website, it's not a gratuity. It's a service charge. I may pay it in advance and try to use my onboard credit on some excursions. Not sure yet. Not happy with Norwegian right now. It is too high of a jump, too quickly. I think they are doing okay financially.