hawkeyetlse

29 minutes ago, Lisamac669 said:

Hi njhorseman, I couldn’t find my original post, there were no notifications on replies?????

It looks like you have found the other thread. As I mentioned there, you also need to check the start date of your passport, because they no longer accept any extra months that may have been added on beyond the standard 10-year validity. 

4 minutes ago, BirdTravels said:

Now,,,, whether they would enforce their own rules is another matter. 

Yes, and that is the matter that the OP is asking about. I’m sure she has already read the website.

I boarded a TA this spring with less than 6 months left on my passport. No issue whatsoever. I once boarded with someone who didn’t show a passport at all (EU citizen traveling around the Mediterranean). 

It’s useful for them to put a simple, conservative rule on the website. And to make passengers 100% responsible for figuring this stuff out on their own. But it’s not in their interest to deny boarding to people who in fact have the correct documents for their cruise. 

People do get left behind on probably every sailing, because they clearly have insufficient documents or because they have an unusual situation and the cruise line decides that it’s too risky. Or occasionally because the cruise line screws up and applies stricter rules than they need to. This can happen with airlines, too. But a UK citizen traveling to Europe is not a strange situation, and all carriers know exactly how to handle it. 

NCL (more precisely the check-in agents at your embarkation port) will apply the entry requirements for the countries visited

on your cruise. It is not some blanket, one size fits all 6 months rule. 

If you are correct that 3 months is sufficient (which it is, in general, for US passport holders visiting Schengen countries, for example), then that is what they will be looking for at check-in, and you will be fine to board with 5 months left. 

My advice, do not get the package for one or two specific brands. And honestly, the package might not even exist anymore in 2025. But if you are prepared to be a little flexible with what you drink, knowing that they will have "some" high-end brands for you to get your money's worth, then it makes sense to purchase now and lock in the price, because it will 100% go up several times between now and 2025.

32 minutes ago, alanstarr said:

 

The best reason to do the free tour is that, in the kitchen, you can see all the meals scheduled for the entire cruise. Helps with planning when you want to book specialty restaurants!

 

You can even see photos of what each dish is supposed to look like! But it's only useful if they schedule the tour near the beginning of your cruise… If you search around you can probably find photos that other people have taken of that wall in the galley. All the ships have the same menus, on the same rotation (although they occasionally experiment with different concepts, and you never know if they will have to rearrange something because of itinerary/supply issues on your specific sailing).

6 hours ago, UnbridledEnthusiasm said:

Can someone chime in if it's more expensive to wait until the day you embark to upgrade to premium plus than if you were to upgrade in advance before the cruise?

It's the same price, unless your booking is in a different currency (in which case the exchange rate they use may be better or worse for you). But if you are also interested in unlimited internet, then it really makes sense to get the FAS+ upgrade, and that is only available before sailing.

You are correct to be wary of the brands that will actually be available on your sailing, because I tried the P+ package on 2 different ships only 3 or 4 months apart, and the brands they had were almost completely different (high-end wine and spirits). I don't necessarily mind drinking different brands, but overall it was a pretty big step down from the first time to the second, so I won't be doing P+ again unless I hear that things have stabilized and NCL is able to provide a consistent experience for people who buy the package.

On the subject of sharing wine with tablemates, I have always been allowed to do it (whether or not the others have P+, or any beverage package) but a few times I have noticed some hesitation from the server or I have been told outright that it is technically not allowed (but they do it anyway). I would not be surprised if they crack down on this very soon, because it is kind of a gigantic loophole through which they lose a lot of money. So I wouldn't count on being able to share your P+ bottles in the future.

21 minutes ago, cruiser2015 said:

If you are planning to sail within a shorter time frame, then you may not use these certificates for your next cruise.

You can if you buy the certificate (especially when they do the $500 offer) and let it "mature" in your account for 4 months. After that you can book a last-minute cruise if you want.

Frankly I don't understand why they have this 120 days restriction in the first place. If they're trying to get people to book NCL for the first time, why put obstacles in their way? So what if it's an impulse booking?

Under the current promo, I’ve been able to double up on two cruises (booked with the NCL Europe office) well after final payment, like 2 weeks before sailing. The EU terms also say 4 months, but evidently they have not been enforcing that at all. 

On very full sailings, if you wait until later in the cruise, you may have to be flexible with the time/day or choice of restaurant, or if you’re a big group you might have to give up on eating all together. But you can always find something, and you really should use up your package however you can during the cruise, because it will not be easy to get a refund. 

Most upgrades will not reset your booking date, which is what determines your eligibility for these extra points offers. But the only way to know for sure is to call NCL or your TA and ask which promo codes are currently associated with your reservation. 

Also, double check that your son is really listed as guest #3 on your booking. It would really mess things up otherwise!

Yes, it will be another $10 per person per day, but they might require both people to take the upgrade.

If they won’t let you upgrade just one person, then you should just do it on board. It should be the same price, because $10 per day is just the difference between the published price for streaming vs. non-streaming. 

You will get 4 meals each: 2 per person (guests 1&2) for FAS, and 2 additional meals per person (again guests 1&2) for FAS+.

8 minutes ago, di T said:

NCLbooked in the Med from Barcelona to Italy in November and looks like we might be charged for the full voyage on all drinks etc.So free at sea is not what we thought we were being sold in the UK

Since your cruises doesn't begin and end in Spain, you won't be charged Spanish VAT from start to finish. But (unless they change things between now and November) you should expect to be charged 10% tax on drinks when in Spanish ports or anywhere near the Spanish coast. If you want, you can try to contest this on board or submit a complaint after you get home.

Sounds like you are booking with NCL Europe or UK. I think this is also why you are allowed to use 2 CruiseNext certificates even on a last-minute booking (in the US I believe you have to be 4 or 6 months out to double up).

In Europe, final payment is due 30 days before sailing. So in theory you only need to apply one CruiseNext deposit to secure the booking, and then when you get home you can get them to apply the second one and pay off the remaining balance a month before the cruise.

5 minutes ago, dbrown84 said:

I've never heard of anyone being able to apply certs to an already fully paid for cruise which is beyond final payment.  But hey, maybe you can.... good luck.

You can totally do this, even after final payment. If your booking qualifies, you can apply two certificates. And they will refund $250 to your card (or $500 if you added two certificates).

Yeah, I don't even understand the option they were offering you. To pay the full face value of the 4 coupons on this cruise ($1000) and to hope that they refund you $500 somehow at a later date? No thanks! Take the OBC right now. You don't have to spend it on anything, because you will have already spent it all.

I was talking about a PCC, not a third-party TA. Since the OP asked about both.

Yes, once a booking is finalized (initial deposit paid) it’s too late for a PCC to get “credit” for it, so they have no incentive to work on it for you. Unless maybe you let them cancel and rebook you, I don’t know.

This is how it has been explained to me, anyway, and it’s why I often get contacted by an eager new PCC when I create a courtesy hold (and why I never hear from them again after I finalize the payment by myself online).

I don’t see a lot of advantages in working with a PCC. I’m sure some are better than others, but the hotline agents seem to be able to do all the same things, and they are available all day, every day. 

6 minutes ago, YORKI1 said:

No one is quite sure, although this letter relates to a 2016 cruise.

How do you know that? It was originally posted yesterday in another thread by someone called Binky0 and they didn’t say when they sailed. 

1 hour ago, Rotie said:

I asked now and they confirmed that the credit is the compensation for the VAT

It's strange that they would do that (give people a blanket refund) and not explain it. We also had unexplained credits on my last cruise, but there was no VAT issue on that sailing and people were told it was an adjustment of port fees (which I also found surprisingly out of character for NCL).

Anyway, people who had less than $40 in taxes will be happy and I suppose anyone who drinks more than that can ask for an additional refund.

So much for “you can be assured that different steps were taken in the meantime to avoid similar issues on future sailings” 🙄

If the rule is that Spain charges TVA/VAT at the time goods/services are enjoyed (regardless of when/where they were paid for), the shouldn’t they collect 10% of the entire cruise fare as well, from every guest embarking from a Spanish port? And wouldn’t all cruise lines simply stop sailing from Spain?

Why is it specifically NCL that runs into this problem year after year, and specifically for drink packages (and not dining or internet or spa passes or any other add-ons that people pre-purchase to use during the cruise)?

Thanks for posting that, Binky0. What sailing were you on? (And how many days did it take you to rack up $140 in taxes???)

I received a similar response a few years back (my refund was somewhat less…), so NCL have evidently been making this “mistake” for a long time now. Their strategy seems to be to take everyone’s money “by mistake” and then only refund it to those who go to the trouble of contacting them after the cruise. 

Are you just one guest in the cabin? Then $52/p/d is the correct price, but again it would be the same daily rate for a 7-day cruise. 

I meant poorer value compared to a shorter cruise. Obviously FAS+ is always going to work out to be cheaper than purchasing the three upgrades separately, that's the whole point of it.

What I was primarily reacting to from your earlier post is that FAS+ does not become cheaper per day on longer cruises. The price per day is always the same, so the overall value decreases as the cruise gets longer (because you never get more than 2 additional dinners).

You are still assuming the wrong price for a 15-day cruise. It would be $59 × 15 days = $885. You are still saving money by bundling the upgrades, it's actually less savings per day than for a 7-day cruise (if the other prices you quoted are accurate). Again it's because the value of the 2 additional dinners always stays the same, but they make you keep paying for them every day.