ncbrowns

We got back from our Viva sailing last week and the hot tub experience wasn't quite as bad as expected.  Our room attendant was diligent about asking us when we wanted the tub ready, which we mostly did in the evenings after dinner.  There was one day where it started a bit too hot but the temperature was usually good when we wanted to get in.  It did cool off a bit after a while but it wasn't too bad the times we were in.  But the tub definitely wasn't holding 40C.  They did drain/refill it, but we didn't have anyone rushing into our room an hour later to let all the water out.  🙂

We got the infamous letter tonight, five days before the sailing.  😞

The $500 OBC is something, but there's no way I would have booked an H4 had I known about this so-called hot tub.  There was a pretty big price difference compared to H5 and the private "hot tub" was a big reason that we splurged.

They say that NCL makes you feel like royalty in the Haven.  I guess that's true because I'll be getting the servants to "draw my bath" every time we want to use the hot tub.

Very disappointing.

Ugh, this is not something I want to see right before sailing in an H4 on Viva where the private hot tub splurge was a major selling point.  Like @Spicer312, I seriously doubt if I would have booked that room class otherwise.

That said, we haven't gotten any letter like @gcoolie posted yet, but it sounds like NCL sent that at the last minute.

Yes; we did this when we sailed on the Gem in June.

The first time we logged in as the guest whose account had the 250 minute credit, the login page offered an upgrade to unlimited.

As has been said, NCL almost always change ship time to local time. I have heard some comments that suggest this doesn’t always happen, but I’ve now done over 100 port visits and this has been the case in every one of them.

We just sailed a Canada / New England itinerary on the Gem last month, and they did *not* switch the ship time to local time in Halifax NS and Saint John NB. They stayed on Eastern instead of switching to Atlantic (+1 hour). No idea why. This caused us a problem on a shared tour we had booked, where the other couple was late because they were looking at the ship's time instead of the pre-arranged local time.

The arrival/departure times on our pre-cruise ncl.com itinerary were in local time. The NCL dailies did warn that ship time was not changing to local time for those ports, but this still doesn't make sense to me.

All other itineraries we've sailed have adjusted the ship's clocks to match local time.

You can use your phone data on a cruise ship. AT&T charges $6140 per GB to surf on most NCL ships. It is a little cheaper to get the unlimited Wi-Fi plan.

Does that rate include a nominal 20% gratuity?

For what it's worth, Verizon does not offer data with their cruise ship service.

What you describe definitely can work on NCL ships, but it does depend on your phone. I have a Samsung Galaxy S8+ (Verizon), whose Mobile Hotspot feature includes a "Wi-Fi Sharing" setting.

If you enable it, you can share a WiFi connection with others by:

- turn off mobile data on your phone so it doesn't try to connect to 3G/4G networks

- connect to the WiFi network you want to share

- if you have to log in (as on NCL's network), do so

- turn on the hotspot with Wi-Fi sharing enabled

- set a password to prevent the world from sharing your connection

- other people can then connect to your hotspot

As SimonaD says, you should be able to test this out on your home network before sailing. Be sure you have your mobile data turned off. And of course, the NCL Wi-Fi isn't super-fast to begin with, so don't expect things to work exactly like they do at home.

I often travel with a Wi-Fi-only table as well as my phone and use Wi-Fi sharing on "free" networks at hotels just so I don't have to log in so many times.

Do note that running the hotspot on your phone will burn battery significantly faster than it would otherwise, so plug in when possible.

How much did it cost to upgrade from the free 250 minutes to the unlimited package?

For our recent 7-day cruise on the Gem, it was about $85 to regular Unlimited. $29.99/day or $209.93 total. The 250 minute package is valued at $125.

Based on our experience booking a cruise for late June on the Gem, I'd suggest adding first rather than adding later. We booked a 2BR suite for a trip with our college-age daughters. My oldest could go, but my youngest had a summer co-op where she wasn't sure if she could get time off.

Our TA ended up booking for 3, figuring we could add a 4th later. My daughter was able to start the job a week earlier in exchange for the week off. But when we tried to add her, NCL's system wouldn't allow us to. The TA and NCL went back and forth, and the thinking was that it was a capacity issue. However, NCL's system would let us make a test booking for 4 in the same class of cabin. We ended up booking a separate inside cabin. I called NCL back to see if there was anything I could do related to suite perks (such as boarding together) and must have hit the lottery. The agent figured out the problem -- my wife had made some specialty dining reservations and that apparently prevented us from modifying the reservation. Huh??? We cancelled those reservations, and were able to fix the booking to what we wanted originally.

But the lesson seems to be that it may not be so easy to add another person, especially if the ship (or portions of it) are nearing capacity. The more experienced TA that worked with me when we were trying to resolve this problem told me she always advises clients that it's easier to remove than add.

Then if you put a $500 deposit for a future cruise they will throw you a rope and one of the lifeboats will tow you to shore

Do keep in mind the 20% gratuity.

I doubt anyone that has money to invest would do it just for a hundred dollar OBC when sailing or for any similar reason. I think the point is: it is fun to get the credit and hopefully, like any stock you will end up selling for more than you paid for it. I know we are happy with ours but did not purchase it for a silly $100 OBC. We followed our investment councilors advice; we had some extra money, he suggested we put some in relatively safe stock and some it a company we knew something about and one we could have fun with. We choose NCL. I will ad, we also choose one company that was a bad choice. Thank God we only invested a few $$s in that one. :o

Heh, the OBC was one of the primary reasons I bought NCLH shares. We mostly invest in mutuals and ETFs. We do invest a bit of money in shares of companies we have personal connections with. Their financials seem decent, but I probably wouldn't have gone out of my way to buy in. We haven't cruised in a while but booked an October cruise on the Epic and then ended up booking a New England/Canada cruise in June on the Gem.

I learned of the NCL shareholder benefit on CC, and decided to put some money down. To claim it, you're making a minimum investment of a bit over $5000 at today's prices. If you do a single one-week cruise a year, this gets you a $100 return on top of any stock price appreciation. That's around 2% of your original investment. While NCLH doesn't pay a dividend, you could look at this OBC as equivalent to a 3% normal dividend after taxes. Since we're taking two NCL cruises in 2018, it's more like 6% for us.

Also note that the benefit can also be claimed on cruises from NCLH-owned lines Oceania and RSSC. When planning our summer vacation, we had been looking at options from both lines before booking a 2BR suite on the Gem with our college-age kids.

Claiming the benefit is pretty easy. I just printed out a brokerage statement, covered up non-NCLH portions, scanned it, and sent separate emails to NCL. For the Epic, I got a reply in 2 days confirming the credit. The Gem one didn't post immediately, and I'm thinking they might have treated my two emails as duplicates. I shot them another email and got the credit the next day. I had plenty of time and waited until the NCLH posted on my next statement. The OP might not have time for that; I'd just send in a trade confirmation and hope for the best.