Anyone else starting to wonder if the Gem is going anywhere!?

cant believe we still have no new itinerary a month out! All I do is check my email!

cant believe we still have no new itinerary a month out! All I do is check my email!

Same here!!!

Having spoken to people at other lines, I don't think people appreciate the issues being faced by the cruise lines in terms of scheduling. Not only has a significant amount of docking space been taken offline, many ports still haven't issued firm notice of when they will be available and if they are available what facilities they will have.

Meanwhile all of the lines are scrambling to book alternative ports where available, and even if a berth might be available there may not be excursion vendors with capacity. Logistics departments are completely overwhelmed.

As they can lock in itineraries they will post them, but until they can get everything confirmed, people have to be patient. The reason you don't know where the Gem is going is probably that they are not sure themselves.

Having spoken to people at other lines, I don't think people appreciate the issues being faced by the cruise lines in terms of scheduling. Not only has a significant amount of docking space been taken offline, many ports still haven't issued firm notice of when they will be available and if they are available what facilities they will have.

 

Meanwhile all of the lines are scrambling to book alternative ports where available, and even if a berth might be available there may not be excursion vendors with capacity. Logistics departments are completely overwhelmed.

 

As they can lock in itineraries they will post them, but until they can get everything confirmed, people have to be patient. The reason you don't know where the Gem is going is probably that they are not sure themselves.

I totally respect the magnitude of what needs to happen and how much work there is in putting together new itineraries. What bothers me is they are using the excuse of needing to schedule "earlier cruises" when in reality they have scheduled the bigger ships through the end of the year and most recently the escape into next year. Its not really right for them to do that and leave people on an October sailing in the Gem still unsure about where they are going.

I understand that the logistical nightmare of rescheduling all of the ships, but it seems like they are picking ships at random.

I see large and small ships that are further out that have been moved. They should reschedule ships that have sooner sailings then work their way out. It's just frustrating that January sailings have a schedule before November sailings.

Cruise Line Industry is probably the only industry where customers are constantly being asked to be considerate. People won't do that to airline companies.

The larger ships are done first, I presume, because there are that many fewer places they can go without tendering. As the passenger count increases, the tendering time does as well, so they need to find ports where they can dock.

I think they are trying to fit each ship’s individual cruises to the same replacement cruise, as well. (We’re on the Jade at Christmas, but all the Jade’s 10-day cruises seem to be the identical new itinerary.)

Airlines are responsible to get people from Point A to Point B. For most cruises, you go from Point A to Point A, with intermediate stops. I’m sure the cruise lines did not expect some of the fury over changed ports, nor the panic over not knowing where they were going. They’re trying to keep Caribbean cruises in the Caribbean, and they assumed people would be content. I did not say “happy”.

The islands are all individual and have unique characteristics, but they’re all warmer than most of the States, they all have beaches, they all have Diamonds International, and they all invented rum. So it goes.

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Having spoken to people at other lines, I don't think people appreciate the issues being faced by the cruise lines in terms of scheduling. Not only has a significant amount of docking space been taken offline, many ports still haven't issued firm notice of when they will be available and if they are available what facilities they will have.

 

Meanwhile all of the lines are scrambling to book alternative ports where available, and even if a berth might be available there may not be excursion vendors with capacity. Logistics departments are completely overwhelmed.

 

As they can lock in itineraries they will post them, but until they can get everything confirmed, people have to be patient. The reason you don't know where the Gem is going is probably that they are not sure themselves.

I do appreciate the magnitude of the problem. However, it was NCL who put out an email over 2 weeks ago stating we'd have information within 2 weeks. It is now well over 2 weeks and there has been no communication at all. Is the ship sailing? Are we going to the Caribbean at all? Are we going to Canada? (please NO!)

Point taken Xriva but you just proved my point your cruise is further out then mine and its the same size ship

and you know your new schedule and we don't.

I don't care where we go but i want to know where we are going.

Point taken Xriva but you just proved my point your cruise is further out then mine and its the same size ship

and you know your new schedule and we don't.

 

I don't care where we go but i want to know where we are going.

Well, one of my subpoints was that we have our itinerary because it's the same as the one in October, when there is another 10-day cruise. If you have a one-off cruise, I bet it will be late.

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I do appreciate the magnitude of the problem. However, it was NCL who put out an email over 2 weeks ago stating we'd have information within 2 weeks. It is now well over 2 weeks and there has been no communication at all. Is the ship sailing? Are we going to the Caribbean at all? Are we going to Canada? (please NO!)

My point exactly!! Starting to wonder if we are going anywhere at all!! I don’t care where we go just want to know we are going somewhere!

I never received the email with any of the changes, but 2 days ago I received the "print your e-doc" email that had the changes on our 11/6/2017 10 day cruise on the Jade. Now 2 weeks ago, I did get an email for our 7 day cruise on the Epic sailing 3/24/2018 with the change of ports. I'm thinking size really doesn't matter.

cant believe we still have no new itinerary a month out! All I do is check my email!

ok, we all know this is frustrating to say the least, but you still have to remember there is a lot of planning and all cruise lines are doing their best to come up with good alternatives if necessary. The old saying "no news is good news"

You can be assured you will be going somewhere and you can be assured you will have a good time.

Be glad you are going to stop at ports. Carnival is doing a cruise to no where cruise due to Nate

While I am understanding, communication would be nice. If you send a mass email giving a date or your customer service email people indicate that an answer is by X date, a simple communication stating they are still working on securing docks/etc, is appropriate.

While I am understanding, communication would be nice. If you send a mass email giving a date or your customer service email people indicate that an answer is by X date, a simple communication stating they are still working on securing docks/etc, is appropriate.

Exactly!!

The old saying "no news is good news"

That's the theory I'm going with for our January Gem sailing. So long as our ports are planning on being open and no changes are being made, maybe our itinerary will actually stay intact.

While I am understanding, communication would be nice. If you send a mass email giving a date or your customer service email people indicate that an answer is by X date, a simple communication stating they are still working on securing docks/etc, is appropriate.

That action would be very nice and very considerate.

We are on 10/31/17 11 day cruise. I guess things are still up in the air because some ports are looking at the first week of November to come back up as destinations. Yes we would all like to know where we will eventually wind up as ports of call. As the commercial states "Get on a ship and cruise the world!"

I tend to think that if we were told by NCL that our final payment was due in 2 weeks they would expect to get their money, or else...

"We expect having this information to you within the next two weeks as new ports of call are secured." Why is the standard different when the shoe is on the other foot? Scheduled on Gem for 10/31 and think they are possibly gambling on some of the ports opening, I don't think they should be gambling on the money I saved for this, especially since they moved other cruises that are going to these same ports months after mine.

I'm just saying treat your customers with some more respect and don't leave them in the dark after saying you expect to have the information within the next two weeks and now we are way past that.

Exactly!!

+1, I agree.

Now this is a much more relevant point (and I wasn't aware they had sent out a date). They should still be keeping you informed..

That said, a little background info based on the people I talked to (this is at another line but I have to imagine things are similar).

When the storms hit and before the magnitude of the disruption was clear, one of the first things they did was start planning possible alternates for each itinerary. Once the options were established, some of these alternates were feasible (and those changes were made) and some not (changes made later or not made yet). Some were feasible for some sailing and not for others (i.e. there was a berth at port X the second and fourth week in November but not 1st and 3rd).

Secondly they are getting conflicting information from some ports as to capacity as multiple lines may be vying for the same spots - a line may think they have Port X avail but when they go to confirm, another line grabbed it. Plus some of the damage ports give conflicting info on when and what they will be able to handle (obviously Puerto Rico is down for a while, as I would suspect are USVI, BVI but there are reports St. Johns think they can be back up soon - I have not checked recently and would be doubtful about excursion capacity.)

Third, ship size IS a factor, where if they can get that berth at port X and it works logistically they are going to put the biggest ship it can handle into it, because that services the most possible passengers.

Fourth, one thing they have been told not to do in any way is change embarkation/debarkation ports which limits the options for replacement itineraries.

Again, this is not to be considered an excuse for not communicating, there is none, they have the tools, just an attempt to explain why some ships have been reassigned and some have not...

Based on what I heard, the following is MY opinion only....

It seems as if a number of ships are chasing a fairly rapidly decreasing pool of available port options or to put it another way the low hanging fruit has been picked leaving lines with limited options. Either add numbers of sea days (which are the least profitable days generally especially with the advent of ABP) or drastically alter itineraries if they even can, or start cancelling cruises where there is no viable option (needless to say they are holding off on this as long as possible because once that trigger is pulled it cannot be unpulled and the cost implications are huge).

Given the delay I would expect either option 1 or option 3 to be most likely in play for the Gem. If 3, they will not announce until they are sure they will have no other options.

While I am understanding, communication would be nice. If you send a mass email giving a date or your customer service email people indicate that an answer is by X date, a simple communication stating they are still working on securing docks/etc, is appropriate.

I would think that the Gem sailing from NY rather than Tampa/Miami/Ft Lauderdale makes it a bit of a different case. I would suspect that 80 - 90% of the passengers come from NY, NJ, Penn, even Quebec/Ontario and are, at most, an 8 hr drive away. This means that many won't have flights or hotels booked and will have less invested in cancelling. I think that they switch to a western itinerary they will have mass cancellations. So, NCL needs to get people to eastern islands somewhere (not sure if they can make Grenada, Barbados on a 10 day) or cancel altogether. We'll see I guess....I am on the 3/2/18 and am getting a bad vibe now. My guess is that you'll be really happy or it will be cancelled. If they're going to cancel I wish they'd hurry up and do it because this is making rebooking something else more difficult.

My guess they got a little bit of a curve ball with Nate this week and they were waiting that out before making the final moves.

Hopefully we see something in the next week or 2.

Spoke to someone today and didn’t get anything promising! Standard blah blah blah!!😖