luv2kroooz

It's not a matter of getting away with anything. Let's assume your feelings are right. Mistakes happen. How they are ultimately dealt with matters, too. Many have paid hundreds of dollars for a premium plus package and/or service charges. Over the past weeks, hundreds of passengers have paid for someone else's honest mistake. How is that the customer's problem. PNCL could choose to own the mistake and make it right for its passengers. Once again, it has failed to do so. It's like that lady that had her cruise booking cancelled by NCL a month or two ago when she inadvertently added something to her online cart, didn't pay for it, NCL cancelled her cruise and tried to keep thousands of dollars that she had paid. After going public with her story, NCL finally reversed course and gave her a future cruise credit. They do this all the time. As I said yesterday, we just booked Emerald Princess and are done with NCL for a while. The way NCL treats people is unprecedented. It is not nice to treat people so poorly on a regular basis. We appreciate your patience and understand while we over and again continue to screw with our valued guests hard earned dollars.

I meant cruise critic isn't a court of law. Yes, if I had paid hundreds of dollars for a premium plus beverage package and thought I didn't get what I paid for, I would enlist the help of various consumer protection agencies. Part of that process would be provide support and proof of my economic losses. Every one is different. I sympathize with anyone who feels they have been cheated and would support them in their case. At the same time, I realize how extremely fortunate we were to only have been impacted by this in Livorno three weeks ago. (We were limited to only beer and cheap wine in Livorno.) People who bough the plus package with the intention of sipping expensive whiskeys and rums were out of luck. We were only in port through 7pm but NCL never opened the full bar menu for the entire night. I do sympathize with those folks because that was extra money they spent and got nothing for it. Might as well flushed it down the toilet.

Thanks for sharing. Now at least we know where you stand. You think port authorities in multiple countries gave NCL insufficient time to pay to open the bar. OK. Fair. I don't believe that, but hey, I could be wrong. I find irony in the notion that you mentioned I had no proof of anything in my post and proceed to make an unsubstantiated claim of insufficient time when there is no information I have seen to support this. However, I don't expect proof or support. This isn't a court of law. It's a cruise message board. I present information based on what I read and how my brain processes it, so I am not going to ask you for any proof of this. Your theory may be true, and I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer admittedly. However, I would think NCL would have been given as much notice as any other cruise line and no other lines seem to have been impacted. Maybe there is a multiple country conspiracy against NCL. P&O bars are and have been wide open. I shared a post over on the P&O Boards with you and asked if you read it and if you believe that to be true, but you didn't respond. Maybe the P&O Board members have a conspiracy against NCL too. Lastly, as a cruise operator, providing cruises worldwide NCL knew or should have known about the rules and requirements to fully operate their cruises in the destinations to which they sail. My prediction is that this will continue to draw criticism and undue attention to NCL. If past behavior is any predictor of future results, NCL will eventually get the bars open in the UK and other ports.

Oohh. Ooh. I can offer my opinion. Let's assume this was an administrative bungle as you describe. Totally honest mistake. I would have added a sentence or two at the bottom of their signs that said something like....We deeply regret that this happened and are taking steps to correct this. Since you paid service charges for bar service that is not being provided, we have already refunded the service charges in the amount of $21.80 that we collected for today. ( Or maybe 50%, we can all input the number). This will reflect as a REFUNDABLE onboard credit on your shipboard account. To our premium plus passengers, we are refunding the daily upgrade fee ( or portion of) plus your service charge. What I would not have done is responded to inquiries with confusing language and half truths about how port regulations are preventing them from opening the bars. That response makes it sounds like no one could ever serve alcohol in a UK port. And we all know that simply isn't true. They still haven't said if they are working to fix this. Instead, the article above says no comment from NCL. So, is it really and administrative bungle or could it be intentional? Who knows? So, again I would ask, if this was an administrative bungle, why do you think they've acted the way they have to date? And I will put the question back to you because I am curious, if you were NCL and made an administrative bungle, how would you have handled it?

That's because you were on a sailing in April. But, you know what, it's cool. Continue to tell people whatever you believe is correct. I posted the current NCL packages in this thread and my only purpose is to have current up to date info, so everyone can decide for themselves. If someone get get goose, consider it a bonus.

Just using up old stock on the Belvedere last month. Most bars out of stock as Belvedere is phasing out, consistent with the revisions. Grey Goose is now premium. As shown on the April revision. Don't believe me though, just call NCL and they will confirm this. I just did.

No one is insinuating anything. Anyone that has eyes and can read and comprehend English can see goose is currently a premium plus offering as shown in the attached. Youve seen this before, so not sure why your post continues to report old and inaccurate information to the members of this forum. Beverage_Package_Flyer_04_23.pdf

Well, they are telling what is commonly referred to as a half-truth. See here is how it generally works.... Local regulations require the vacation provider to pay some fees or taxes to the locality in order to serve alcohol. The regulations vary from port to port. If the vacation provider doesn't pay the fees, then local regulations prohibit them from selling alcohol. When a vacation provider advertises unlimited open bar, inherent in that advertisement is the understanding that the vacation provider will take the steps necessary to allow for the bar to be opened. That is how free markets work. I pay you money for a service; you take my money and deliver the service. Every other cruise line in the industry has taken the steps necessary to address this. NCL has apparently advertised unlimited open bar, collected money from their customers for open bar, but never took the steps necessary to pay the fees to the ports to allow for the bar to be opened. I don't have enough info to know if that was unintentional or intentional, and that is a different matter. The executive office seems to be well aware of the situation and to date hasn't acknowledged any plans to change it or refund passengers money. Based on this, I assume it is an intentional business decision. So, yes, if they didn't pay the fees, then local regulations prohibit them from opening the bar, just as the sign says. However, had they paid the fees, there would be no issue. See, this is how P&O, Princess, Royal, etc have been able to serve alcohol in all of the ports. I posted the link to the P&O thread yesterday. Did you read it? Do you believe the experiences outlined in the thread? P&O advertised, collected, and then paid the port to deliver the service. NCL advertised, collected, and then didn't pay the port for the service. Therefore, local laws prohibit them from serving alcohol unless or until they pay up, just as the sign says. Does this help you out or are you confused? If you are waiting for NCL to come out and issue an official press release telling you that they did not pay these fees, you are probably going to be waiting a long, long time. Things just don't work that way. In the past when NCL has done foolish things, they eventually get a lot of negative publicity and just quietly fix the problem.

Do you really think they care about us? Cmon man. They couldn't care less about us. They aren't commenting because they are on quite a slippery slope. They are collecting money from passengers for a service they have chosen not to provide. They have to pay the port to open the bar and deliver the service they are charging for. It appears they have made a decision to not pay, keep the passengers money, and save the cost of the actual liquor. A triple win for NCL, but it amounts to theft and deceptive advertising. Not a position I would want to find myself in as a business owner.

That person was likely laid off last December before Christmas and never replaced. But hey, its just our money in play, so no biggie, right?

Yes, exactly. To that end, we just placed a refundable deposit on Emerald Princess for our fall cruise. In fairness, it is a Caribbean run where NCLs drink packages have worked in the past, too. But, we just aren't comfortable doing business with NCL at this time. Too many problems with itinerary changes, last minute port cancellations, taxes fees surcharges, and top level mgmt changes. We don't know what we are buying when we buy an NCL cruise. NCL won't miss us. Well, time to pop over to the Princess boards for a little. Everyone have a good day and especially those onboard over in Europe dealing with this very unfortunate issue.

Southampton is currently out, but the complete bar menu was offered in all of our 4 Spanish ports in April. But there is an additional 10% tax on each drink while docked or while sailing with 12 nautical miles of Spanish waters. Tito's tonic +1.50 Shot of crown +1.50. Beer +.70 Mudslide +1.20 Adds up very quickly. I think we ran up an additional $80 in taxes during our 4 port calls. Unexpected, but at least we got some value out of our package Sadly, we met people that had bought premium plus but were not using it or trying to wait until we were in intl waters due to the high taxes. A high end bottle of wine or champagne came with a whopping $20.00 tax. Woodford Reserve +2.30, Chambord +2.00. NCLs listed menu prices are astronomical and way overinflated. During our lengthy sailing, I think we saw 3 people sign a receipt for drinks. Everyone had the promo. Effectively no one pays menu price, but when you combine a high tax rate with ridiculously high base prices, you can get a nasty result even with the promo package. Truth be told, the NCL beverage package promo in exotic, port intensive destinations is not looking real attractive to us. Additionally, offerings are always changing and continuing to erode and degrade. We would probably consider it in the Caribbean or on an itinerary with a lot of sea days. Otherwise we would probably opt out and forego liquor for a week or two.

Also being discussed on P&O Boards here on Cruise Critic. No issues with alcohol being served in UK ports on P&O. Continues to be solely and exclusively an NCL issue.

This is not how it played out in Livorno a few weeks ago. No hard alcohol/spirits were served to anyone onboard while docked or for the remainder of the evening. It didn't matter if you did or didn't have the package. Beer and wine were available. Also, doesn't reconcile with the behavior of the other cruise lines that have been able to serve alcohol. I can't imagine the entire industry is breaking the rules, except for NCL.

Of course they are advised in advance. Most fair minded people realize all that is lined up well in advance with the port agents and local authorities....bunkering, dockage fees, port charges, berth assignments. The notion that the ship pulls up to the dock and is faced with haphazard, unannounced, surprise charges is hilarious, and just serves as a distraction from the fact that NCL continues to collect money for a service that it is not able to provide.

I was on a recent April cruise on NCL that called in Livorno. We were limited to beer and wine. No biggie for me. However, there were unhappy customers complaining to the bartenders. The bar staff knew there were more restrictions coming in Greece and UK as I personally overheard them saying things like, they should be thankful we are in Livorno and not Southampton. Based on this, I don't believe this was any type of last minute issue. However, you can continue to push whatever narrative that justifies the outcome you want.

I figured that would be your answer, but thank you for confirming.

That is unfortunate, but people will do what they need to do to compensate themselves for a service they paid for and did not receive. Aside from a few on here who recommend tipping at hundreds of dollars per day, many of NCLs customers are middle income, hard working people. The execs are in Miami hiding under their desks counting the nickles and dimes, while their hard working crew are being financially harmed. Predictable result here.

Don't you think everyone might be a wee bit more understanding if NCL refunded service charges and premium plus upgrade fees for the days they were unable to deliver the beverage package? Or is it your position that NCL is allowed to keep people's money in the scenario where they are unable to provide the service for whatever reason?

Thank you for sharing your wife's response. I find it laughable and very sad.

What is your point? Is it ok to lie and be deceptive when no money is at stake? Tell the people that upgrade to the plus package that they didn't pay for their drink package and see how that works out for you.

Bankruptcy.

Candidly, it is a pretty weak case as evidenced by the comments in this thread. Good lawyers must always weigh hazards of litigation and likelihood of success when deciding whether or not accept or decline new work. You might start stockpiling multiple water bottles.

Yeah, you are confused, but no need to apologize. No one that I know is upset because they can't drink on board in Southampton. They are upset because they paid money and/or service charges in advance to NCL in exchange for the ability to drink alcohol on the ship in Southampton. However, when the ship arrived in Southampton (and in multiple other ports on multiple days), the OP has been unable to obtain the alcohol that was paid for. NCL has cited port rules and regulations and to date has not offered a pro rated refund of beverage package charges and/or service charges. They've effectively marketed and charged passengers for alcohol (unlimited open bar) but failed to take the necessary steps with the local port to ensure they can actually serve said alcohol (unlimited open bar). I hope that clarifies your confusion.

Not a lawyer and don't play one on TV. No need to get a lawyer involved on my behalf. I just don't care that much. Cheers. Have a good life!!