Cancelling. Again.

[ukbecky]

First, I am platinum and have done many, many cruises on 5 different lines and I am not new here.

 

I hate the way NCL handles things and have booked and cancelled a number of NCL cruises since my last one in 2010. All cancellations have been in response to something NCL has done, and handled badly.

 

The latest is a Greek sailing on the Star.

 

I have had only one cancelled port in the last 6 years, that was not due to weather. I do not blame the cruise line for the weather- I DO blame the cruise line for mechanical problems with their ships. Stuff happens, I understand, but the company needs to understand and take responsibility when mechanical failures occur.

 

In 2014, a port was cancelled on our Carnival Miracle sailing due to(from their letter)"The Carnival Miracle has experienced a technical issue that is only impacting the ship's maximum cruising speed", it then goes into details of the speed reductions and when the repairs will be done. We were offered reimbursement of non-refundable transportation costs if cancelling and $50 OBC per passenger and 25% future cruise discount per passenger if we chose not to cancel.

 

Knowing the Star problems, I have been on the lookout for news from NCL.

 

This week I got a letter from NCL about my April booking. It says:

 

---------------------

"Norwegian Cruise Line has important information for you regarding Norwegian Star's 7-Day Adriatic & Greece sailings from Venice, Italy of April 23, May 21,

June 4, 18, July 30, Aug. 27, Sept 10, 24, Oct. 8 and 22, 2017. All guests booked on these sailings need to be aware of this change and travel

professionals are asked to forward this information to their clients.

The itinerary for above mentioned sailings has been changed. Please see the revised itinerary information below"

 

(revised itinerary)

 

"For guests who booked shore excursions on the original itinerary in ports no longer being visited, these will be cancelled and refunds processed to form

of payment. New tour information will be available and you can pre-book with our Shore Excursions team or onboard.

For any guests booked outside of the US/Canada please visit http://www.ncl.com for our local contact information in handling your reservation.

Thank you for your understanding. If you have any questions, please contact us at our dedicated support line at (877) 461-1160 from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm

ET Monday through Friday.

We look forward to welcoming you aboard Norwegian Star.

----------------------------

 

No explanations, no apology. It was booked as one port in Croatia, 2 Greece(1 being Santorini), and 1 Italy. Now it is 2 Croatia, 1 Montenegro, Santorini has been replaced with a mainland Greece port, and the Italy one was dropped.

 

To be honest, it is a great itinerary. But it is very different from the one I booked. Someday I might do this itinerary, but because I CHOSE it.

 

Substitutions and port cancellations should be explained.

 

I called to cancel and asked why the changes were made. The entire answer was "It was an executive decision to make those changes".

 

 

 

 

Please don't tell me not to cruise for the ports. If I just want to be on a ship, not caring where it goes, I will do another Caribbean sailing to islands I have been to numerous times. I would not spend the money for airfare to Europe.

 

It is insulting and condescending to change my vacation without explanation, and expect me to just accept it.

[NittanyCruise]

10-4, I'm sure Frank doesn't care one bit.

[Sotermarler]

That stinks. I am sorry that happened to you.

I agree some type of apology from NCL would have been nice, but as already stated, Frank doesn't care.

 

 

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[Griff61]

Holland America did the same thing for my Alaska cruise in May

Not for ice problems They knew they didn't win the lottery for being able to go into GB & TA in September 16 and kept their itinerary the same all the way through till December 16 and then changed it to Hubbard and Sitka.

 

 

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[laurabegorrah]

I don't think these changes have anything to do with the recent Azipod issues, since it appears that they have been fixed in the last few days (passenger reporting seeing 2 wakes now). We are on the Feb 6th sailing, and have had no notification of changes to our itinerary.

 

I think this really was an executive decision. Someone mentioned that there are 3 or 4 other ships scheduled to be in Santorini the originally scheduled day that the Star was there - could be something to do with it? But you would think that NCL would've secured port times farther than 3 months in advance, so they would be able to notify passengers earlier. That does suck that the changes were sprung so close to the first sail date.

[hawkeyetlse]

I think a lot of NCL customers are currently in a mindset where they don't believe anything NCL says, anyway. Even if they had included a line in the letter saying "We are sorry for having to change your itinerary because of unforeseen scheduling difficulties" people would dismiss the apology as insincere, and they would be unsatisfied with the explanation. The fact that they are offering $50 OBC is some type of apology, but some customers are more insulted by that than appeased. If you are one of those customers, the best thing to do is cancel. NCL wants you to cancel, too.

[littlelulu01]

I understand your frustration but have you seen the port schedule for Santorini? In this case the port changes NCL has made appear to be an extreme improvement. The new itinerary will most likely sell out quite easily. Those port days they replaced have 4-5 other big ships in port at the same time so a minimum of 10-12k cruise passengers all trying to use the one cable car, tender processing and donkey trail. Santorini has said for several years now they are going to limit cruise ships to avoid these situations. We don't really know if it was Santorini finally putting a limit on passengers or if NCL decided to pull out because Santorini is once again allowing mass overcrowding despite their promise not to. NCL has received preferred port time in years past for Santorini with the Jade arriving after the other ships left port. Last year they replaced the canceled Turkey port with an extra Santorini day and the extra day was a mess. You can go back and read some reviews to get an idea. Our add on Santorini day I witnessed people just about to collapse. The lines for cable car snaked through Fira to the end of town. People who were in no condition to walk down the Donkey path did so because they had no other choice. If I was booked on this itinerary I would think I'd won the lottery with the changes.

[NMLady]

First, I am platinum and have done many, many cruises on 5 different lines and I am not new here.

 

I hate the way NCL handles things and have booked and cancelled a number of NCL cruises since my last one in 2010. All cancellations have been in response to something NCL has done, and handled badly.

 

The latest is a Greek sailing on the Star. ...

 

Couldn't you have added your complaint to one of the several threads about this itinerary change rather than starting yet another thread about it?

[txagfan]

This is for a cruise in 2018? I think you're being overly sensitive personally.

 

 

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[ukbecky]

Couldn't you have added your complaint to one of the several threads about this itinerary change rather than starting yet another thread about it?

 

 

I could have. I chose not to.

[KeithJenner]

This is for a cruise in 2018? I think you're being overly sensitive personally.

 

 

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No, these are 2017 sailings.

[jvsnana]

The fact that they are offering $50 OBC is some type of apology, but some customers are more insulted by that than appeased.

Just to clarify...where did you see that they were offered $50 OBC? Maybe I missed that somewhere in translation.

[SeaShark]

I could have. I chose not to.

 

But you didn't say "why"!

 

Don't we deserve an explanation?? :rolleyes:

[ukbecky]

This is for a cruise in 2018? I think you're being overly sensitive personally.

 

 

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This is about 2017 cruises. Final payment would have been this coming Monday. So, at least I could still cancel.

 

 

The letter I received does not offer OBC to cruise anyway, no matter how small.

 

It looks very much like they are waiting until closer to sailing dates to finalize itineraries. Like the booking is for the date and ship, and the itineraries are TBD. Not at all the way people plan vacations.

[Son of a son of a ...]

Cynically, I think they do this every now and then to scare people from booking non-NCL excursions.

[KeithJenner]

Just to clarify...where did you see that they were offered $50 OBC? Maybe I missed that somewhere in translation.

 

 

 

OBC is usually offered when there is a more significant change to an itinerary (cancellations, changed dates or embarkation ports etc).

 

From previous experience, I wouldn't expect it to be offered for changes like this.

 

I assume that the post you quoted was based on an assumption, as some changes which are currently being discussed do involve OBC being given.

[ukbecky]

But you didn't say "why"!

 

Don't we deserve an explanation?? :rolleyes:

 

Executive decision :rolleyes:

 

Seriously, I want people to notice, and know what happened.

 

Even if you are not on one of the affected cruises, question whether booking with NCL is the right choice- if you care at all where you are going to go. They can(and WILL) change your ports for any reason.

[StolidCruiser]

 

 

It is insulting and condescending to change my vacation without explanation, and expect me to just accept it.

 

Life must be a constantly insulting and condescending if this has made such an impact to prattle on here about very common occurrences in the travel world.

[jvsnana]

OBC is usually offered when there is a more significant change to an itinerary (cancellations, changed dates or embarkation ports etc).

 

From previous experience, I wouldn't expect it to be offered for changes like this.

 

I assume that the post you quoted was based on an assumption, as some changes which are currently being discussed do involve OBC being given.

Thanks for that answer..I thought I missed something in the original post...yes, someone must have been assuming :)

[SeaShark]

They can(and WILL) change your ports for any reason.

 

Anyone who has read the cruise contract is aware of that...this isn't new news.

[ukbecky]

Life must be a constantly insulting and condescending if this has made such an impact to prattle on here about very common occurrences in the travel world.

 

If this is common in your world, you are doing business with the wrong companies.

[hawkeyetlse]

Thanks for that answer..I thought I missed something in the original post...yes, someone must have been assuming :)

Sorry, yes, I was assuming based on the $50-$100 OBC that they are offering to passengers affected by itinerary changes on the Spirit (see this post). But the Spirit cruises are 10-day sailings where they are going from 9 ports to 8 ports, so you could argue that the changes are more drastic (apparently NCL thinks so…). The situations (and the timing of the announcements) seem to me to be pretty similar. Maybe it is just down to the length of the cruise and the fact that the OP's new itinerary has the same number of ports as the original one.

 

Another thing is that the letter posted in the other thread came from NCL UK, so that might make a difference, although I would be a little surprised if US passengers on those Spirit sailings were offered nothing.

Edited January 20, 2017 by hawkeyetlse

[KeithJenner]

Sorry, yes, I was assuming based on the $50-$100 OBC that they are offering to passengers affected by itinerary changes on the Spirit (see this post). But those are 10-day sailings, and you could argue that the changes are more drastic in the case of the Spirit (apparently NCL thinks so…), but the situations seem to me to be pretty similar. Another thing is that the letter posted in the other thread came from NCL UK, so that might make a difference, although I would be a little surprised if US passengers on those sailings were offered nothing.

 

 

 

ukbecky seems to have confirmed that there was no OBC offered.

 

I think the other itinerary change is rather more drastic than this one. My understanding of the one we are talking about here is that it is a couple of changed ports on an itinerary that still goes to the same area and most posts are unchanged.

 

The other one is a fundamentally different itinerary.

 

I'm not sure where the cut off is for offering OBC, but I have to say that I'm more surprised that they did offer it for the other one than that they didn't for this.

[BLACKBURNROVERS]

I do sympathise with UKbecky regarding the changes to a booked cruise.To miss Santorini for me would be pretty awful as it is an island I had always wanted to see. In August 2015, we had booked a Canary Island cruise due for departure in April this year. Some weeks later, all the details seemed to disappear from the many web sites and it then turned out that NCL had cancelled the entire cruise. We were offered a choice of getting our deposit back or re-booking and getting $50 compensation. We took the second option and sailed last September on the Epic.

Edited January 20, 2017 by BLACKBURNROVERS

[ukbecky]

They added a port to the sailing I had booked.

 

Like I said, this itinerary is actually better IMHO since I find it more interesting and different. Even so, the new ports that we have not been to, make this a less relaxing trip than we had planned. It changed the 'flavor' of the vacation. We just did a 17 day, fairly port-intensive cruise in November and wanted to relax a little.

 

I object to the fact that they did it, without explanation, just because they could(apparently - since I can only guess. They don't feel the need to tell me why.)

 

And, crowded or not, Santorini was why I chose this particular cruise. It was the one port we have not been to before. But I think I might have stuck with the new, more interesting itinerary if they had told me why they were doing it.

 

It was a 'because we said so' decision which is bad customer service.