Updates! What's the status of your POA rebooking?

[Host CMLA]

Because there are still people working through their rebooking, I wanted to repost the statement from NCL and give everyone a place to update their stories with the newest information.

LauraSterling

Administrator
posted 02-26-04 12:16 PM
The folks over at Norwegian Cruise Line have asked me to post the following update:

"As you may have seen previously on this thread, Norwegian Cruise Line posted a statement in response to concerns from some of you who feel your Pride of America bookings have not been handled according to our rebooking policy.

As this board is anonymous, we have no way to research your individual issues so we would like to provide the following e-mail address [email]prideofamerica@ncl.com[/email] so that you may contact us directly with any outstanding issues.

We would also like to inform you that the rebooking process is complete and travel agents have been sent e-mail and fax confirmations. If you have not received your confirmation yet, please call your travel agent for it. If for some reason neither you nor your travel agent has received your confirmation then an error has occurred and we would like to hear from you as soon as possible to correct that.

As we read the continued thread we see instances that are clearly in contravention of our published policy regarding moveovers from Pride of America to Pride of Aloha. To provide clarity we have provided the below policy and grid. The offer we have made to you should be the same as the offer specified in the table. If it is not, or if for some reason you have not heard from us (directly or through your travel agent) we want to hear from you.

There should not have been any circumstances in which a booked passenger has been offered the same or lesser accommodation and been asked to pay more for it. There should not have been any circumstance in which an upgrade has been done by our choice rather than the passenger's request and the passenger has been asked to pay more. If you have been asked to pay more for the same or lesser accommodation than you had already booked, we will certainly rectify that error, but you have to let us know. Again, please use the e-mail address shown above.

NCL’s policy on the rebooking process for Pride of America is below:

 Agents were called in order of booking date;
 If at all possible, NCL moved passengers to equivalent cabins and sailing dates;
 If a passenger was moved to an equivalent or superior cabin, their rate was protected or reduced if the new applicable Pride of Aloha rate was lower
 If an equivalent cabin type was not available, NCL offered passengers: a new lower applicable price; a future cruise credit certificate (please see below); and an air discount for Air/Sea guests;
 If guests cannot be accommodated on the same date in any category, they may change their sail date and the company will pay for any applicable air change fee;
 If passengers choose not to transfer to Pride of Aloha, they will receive a full refund.
 Cruise credit certificates are outlined in the table below. This table confirms the cruise credit certificate amount not any specific cabin reallocation:


[url="http://www.ncl.com/news/future_CruiseCred.htm"]http://www.ncl.com/news/future_CruiseCred.htm[/url]

Because there has been speculation regarding the scale of this move over, we thought it would be useful to provide you with the facts. Since the accident with Pride of America, we have moved 36,500 passengers between Pride of America and Pride of Aloha, and between Norwegian Sky and SuperStar Leo. Out of this number, a total of seven percent have cancelled. It is our very strong opinion that the early introduction of Pride of Aloha is the right decision and we believe the extremely low cancellation rate demonstrates that.

Where we have made mistakes during this process, we do, of course, apologize and we will do everything in our power to correct those mistakes as soon as possible. There will, of course, also be individuals who do not agree with the policy we have established for moving passengers between ships. We have tried to take a fair and consistent approach throughout the process and our experience is that the majority of affected passengers have been understanding and supportive. We have not intentionally deviated from our policy throughout this process.

One issue that has concerned us greatly is the one raised where we have moved or even downgraded booked passengers in order to sell new inventory at a higher rate. We are categorically not attempting to do this. All passengers were rebooked before any sailings were opened up for sale. It is possible that confirmations of new cabin assignments had not been sent by us or passed on by travel agents before voyages were put on sale. We can guarantee, however, that every booked passenger was protected in the best possible accommodation before any sailings were opened for sale.

Subsequent to that, some rebooked cabins were cancelled, albeit not very many, however, when these cabins cancelled our system automatically put these cabins back on sale. This was an unintentional consequence of us not realizing that some people we had reaccommodated would turn around and cancel within days of confirming their acceptance of our offer. When any booking is cancelled the cabin is released back into inventory automatically and is available for sale. We heard about the problem pretty quickly from travel agents and we had to manually override our system to stop it, which took a few days. This was a mistake on our part for which we apologize - but it was a genuine mistake. We have now put all categories on voyages where anyone was downgraded on a stop sell and will be announcing an automated waitlist system as soon as we have developed this new functionality in our reservation system - which should be by the end of this week.

Our efforts in this process have been in good faith, with the intent of ensuring we deliver on our promise to over 36,000 people and their vacation plans. We took on a huge task once we decided to introduce Pride of Aloha early and the vast majority of booked passengers have decided to continue to vacation aboard Pride of Aloha.

We have tried to deal with every concern that has been raised to us in a service-oriented manner, but any complaint is of course one too many. So far, 33 people have contributed to this thread, many expressing concerns, some content with the change and the way the change has been handled. With 36,500 passengers to move and the difference in the mix of cabins - specifically fewer balcony cabins on Pride of Aloha - we understand and, of course, expect some concerns. Overall we have been encouraged by the number of people who are continuing with their vacation plans aboard Pride of Aloha and with the relatively few guests who are uncomfortable with the moveover offer and our handling of the change.

We have incurred many millions of dollars of incremental costs as a result of this move and it was not a decision we took lightly. We genuinely want to hear from you if your rebooking does not adhere to the policy above or if you have not heard from your travel agent or us.

We truly do thank you for your business and we look forward to seeing you on Pride of Aloha".

Norwegian Cruise Line


Laura Sterling
Community Manager
Cruise Critic

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent -Eleanor Roosevelt-

This posting was edited to include a LINK to the NCL Table...no other information was changed.

[easytoplease]

We are still being charged higher prices on the move from porthole to inside cabin, I have emailed that address several times our bookings 3 of them have now been sent to an even different department. NCL can contact me at my email [email]dbott4015@aol.com[/email] if they want to get this taken care of. It is almost final payment time and I would love to get this taken care of so that I could start to get excited about the trip.

[margu1241]

easytoplease,
What is the final payment date? I thought it originally was 60 days, but has since been moved to 75-is that correct?

I am in the same boat as you are, in that we still have not recieved a correct invoice and are nearing final payment. If I pay the original amount as my TA said will be the case, what will NCL do when they are showing on their records that I should pay an extra $1500 for the three cabins I have booked. I don't want the cabins to be dropped because we are not making the correct final payment, but I really don't want to pay 1500 more than I should have to.

I still am at a loss for why this is taking so long to straighten out. My TA says not to worry, that he will only bill us for the original amount. I am starting to think that the reservation was messed up and he just grabbed 3 good cabins in the window when NCL was selling them, in which case they would not be rate protected. I have not come out and asked him if that is what happened, but will when I talk to him this week.

Patty

ALOHA! Pride of America 7/18
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[easytoplease]

I am on the July 25th cruise and we are taking our kids and their families. So we booked quite a few cabins and for some of them we did get a small reduction from moving from porthole to inside and some of them they charged us more. I have been in contact with NCL and so has my TA. The lady we were dealing with from the web site NCL posted has trasferred our bookings to another department for someone to look at. Dont understand it since NCL has issued this letter twice that the people who answer the email address cant do anything to reduce the price from higher than originally booked. I am at a loss as to what to do. I would be really scared to only make a partial payment on final payment date as your TA suggests. I just think maybe they should give a copy of the letter they are sending out here to their employees. I would love for this to all get taken care of, we want to just have a good time. This is a really big trip for our family and you could imagine the expense. We have 7 children and 3 of them are married with children of their own, so we have quite a few cabins booked and would just like to get this taken care of. Thank you for letting me vent. Debbie

[maltesemom]

I am on the 9/5/04 sailing and I went from a BA to a BB and am quite pleased. That's what happens when you have a really good travel agent. He took care of everything. The only difference it the cabin is the BA was midship and this is towards the front of the ship.


Nordic Empress 6/02
Norwegian Dawn 6/03
Pride of Aloha 9/04

[margu1241]

I am satisfied with the cabin change-went from BE aft balcony to BC midship (two cabins) and K to I inside (one cabin). What is still hanging us up is that the new invoice shows a higher price for those cabins. I realize that we have officially been "upgraded" and am sure that a mistake was made and the cabins have been billed at the correct price for the category and not what we originally booked the cabins for. Think I will call again today and see what I can find out.
Patty

ALOHA! Pride of America 7/18
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[ERNLYN]

Thank you Cecilia,
I'am one of those still working out my booking with my travel agent and NCL. I was looking for this post last week.
Thank you again for re-posting it.....

Sovereign of the Seas '97
Imagination '98
Fantasy '98
Inspiration '99
Sea Breeze '00
Tropical '01
NCL "SUN" '02
POA Aug 15,'04

[margu1241]

Well, I am happy to report that it appears my issues with the pricing on the changeover to the Aloha have been resolved. I will get the paper copy on Monday, but it seems that they have put the price back to the original amount booked on America and have put us back in the aft cabin that we originally booked! It took them a while (3 months!) to straighten it out, but all turned out well in the end.
Patty

Pride of Aloha
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[sydsmom]

Hi. I'm the one who got bumped from the Aug 8 America to the Aug 15 and then to the Aloha. Went from Aft Balcony BE to Porthole E. Then they called and said if I paid $900 more I could have a cabin. Had my TA call and they went down to $600 and I still wouldn't go for it. Someone on this board told me to email the NCL email address so I did. Lisa Baron emailed me and said I was waitlisted for a balcony and she would see what she could do. Today my TA called and said for only $300 I could have a balcony. I said, call them and mention the fact that -- all of the above. He tried but they were already gone for the day. I have to call back on Monday. I may take it even though it is $300 because I would really like a balcony. Of course, my poor nephews were on deck 10 because they went from an I to an I but I had them moved to a K so they could be on the same deck as my daughter and I. We'll see what happens.
Stacey

[royaloakie]

bump

[margu1241]

I made final payment last weekend and made sure to double check the cabin numbers on the invoice to make sure they had not been changed. We went from 2 aft balconies and an inside across the hall to 1 aft, 1 midship and 1 inside about 10 cabins from the aft.

My TA did say that he had a stack about 3" thick of confirmations for my booking that he got in trying to straigten it out. At one point we were in porthole and inside cabins. I am really greatful to him for his persistance in setting things right for us.

By the way, he did say that NCL was constantly changing the cabins without asking him for approval (hence the thick stack of confirmations). Does the fact that I have paid for a cabin number on the invoice mean that it can't be changed any more (unless it is an upgrade)?

Sydsmom,
How did your situation turn out?

Patty

Pride of Aloha
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[sydsmom]

We paid for the balcony and they agreed to move my nephews back to deck 10 for no additional cost. We are not right across the hall from each other (I think they are 5 cabins one way from the elevators and we are 5 in the other direction) but I say, what the hey, we are on the same deck and I got a balcony so I am now a happy camper[img]http://messages.cruisecritic.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]