Stevio

MSC are not currently sailing. Italy has travel bans between their own regions with a national 10pm curfew in operation. I do not think their ports would yet welcome cruise ships after all the hard containment work they have done. Once fully vaccinated of course a different matter. MSC have pioneered onboard mask wearing, passenger tests, checks and social distancing.

You have mentioned about paying gratuities, but as a fellow Brit I can tell you that as long as you booked in UK the gratuities are included in the free Premium Beverage Package price. It isn't in the US so a lot of advice on here is given for the wrong set of rules. I would definitely look to "share a taste or two" with guest 3 as the drinks package is exorbitant at around $99 per person per day x cruise days plus 20% gratuity to buy... Have you considered investing in straws?

Well we are platinum plus so it didn't matter to us. Our May cruise was cancelled and points were added after theoretical completion date but disappeared again around October time. If you still have those points... Shh don't tell them, maybe they won't catch on.

That "error" was not only corrected, but around 5 months after my cruise points were awarded they were taken away.

In UK when booking shore excursions in the past online you have had to pay in full in advance... You could however call them to pre book and get reward discounts applied by going to ships desk. $50 excursion credit applied to account after each excursion completed. The change that occurred in the last few months is that both shore excursion $50 credits and reward discounts are now when signed in, credited & discounted online and in the app prior to real time payment.. (Yes they increased their prices to cover this). On our last cancelled cruise the shore

Do not know if this sheds any light on the above discussion. But I know that NCL definitely fixes the UK £-$ exchange rate at the time of booking for each cruise for the purposes of a later purchase of refundable onboard credit which has been very good for our last Panama cruise receiving $1.35 vs £1.25 just prior to cruising. This credit was used for purchasing CN certificates onboard which would exactly mirror ged1967's experience of Cruise Next purchased at exchange rate of cruise booking. This would also apply to the value any issued non refundable credit issued at time of cruise

We usually have the opposite problem in that the Cruise Next certificate is too high so when trying to apply a £204 certificate to a £100 deposit the screen locks and the red banner shows we are trying to pay too much. The bottom line is the way the UK NCL website is set up it is impossible to use a CN certificate to pay a deposit online. You are forced to call them and make your complete booking over the phone where they have no problem using the certificate. On the phone in your case they will accept your £198 as a full deposit and add the £2 to your balance due.

As all September NCL cruises are removed from their website in an apparent prelude to cancellations with reports on other threads claiming September fully paid cruises have changed to balance to be paid status I would guess no Chance of any Sept' European sailings going ahead. Edit Ahh.. I am a slow typer and see you already have your answer. I have an October Getaway cruise booked and am certain that is not happening either.

I too am impatient for cruising to restart... But those crew return dates screenshots posted on other threads look to be more and more likely. (Apart from the year typo on Star)...

Well then it appears that NCL has now given a much clearer picture of a start in August... It will be in October at the earliest.

Yes, all of September currently greyed out on UK site. I was just posting this info as news on the "August return thread" when I noticed you have beaten me to it..... Now if they could just remove the October 2020 cruises I could look for a return of my Oct' Getaway deposit.

Uncertain if this is a temporary glitch but as of today on the UK NCL site not only has the August cruise disappeared but so has all of September's cruises.

Good news for the UK... As of 14:00 NCL has sorted out their link and now goes to an honest to goodness refund form which we have filled out. As I write this the wife has just shown me 4 identical E-Mails confirming that my request has been submitted successfully (please allow 90 days etc) all sent at 14:09hrs. So I guess that they have received it.

*WARNING* As of 13:30hrs... The Link that has just appeared on the UK site for a refund actually connects to "Suspended Sailings – Request to Keep My Future Cruise Credits" "This form can only be used if you are removing the request for a refund for all individuals on a reservation".. And not the refund links posted above.

I too have been trying to find a definitive answer to onboard credit and the casino for a while now and even after 20 + NCL cruises have not found one. However the following is what I have found to operate on NCL ships. Refundable OBC is used to pay your final room account bill at the end of the cruise (just about everything you spend on board is charged to the room account), be it casino, shopping, etc’ and if there is any left over refunded. Non Refundable credit “officially” cannot be used in the casino. It again is set against the final bill and should be used up before any refu