NCL Excursions or Lack of Excursions

[Heartfelttraveler]

Has anyone experienced  an itinerary where Norwegian Cruise Lines did NOT offer a single excursion option?

 

Our Bliss Panama Canal trip in less than two weeks has had two ports that have changed ports completely twice in the last six weeks and then one of the changed ports went from morning hours to afternoon hours.  As of now there are NO excursions offered in two of the five ports.  I am just wondering if this is a common occurrence with NCL.

 

(I know that a lot of you enjoy non cruise line excursions.  I also do sometimes.  That is not what I am asking about.)

[cb at sea]

I'm sure, with itinerary changes, they are scrambling to offer excursions....after all, they make money off of those!  If they aren't avail. to book in advance, you can do it once you board the ship.  I would also do a bit of googling those 2 ports, just to see what interests you in each.  That way, WHEN excursions are offered, you'll know which you'd prefer!

[luv2kroooz]

Exactly, they are scrambling with lots of changes. Nov 4 Pearl sailing has no land based tours for Harvest Caye. NCL said they have agreements from the local tour operators but NCL is now delayed in building the offered tours into their website so they can be booked by passengers. I haven't experienced these late port adjustments and delays on other cruiselines, so my guess is this is an internal issue unique to NCL.

 

[YVRBassElectric]

have you asked your Roll Call? Can others book for those ports? On the fist Panama cruise of the Bliss, we had an itinerary change, some people could see/book itineraries, I couldn't, there was a technical error with my login. I had to contact Miami. 

 

[BirdTravels]

The ship has to contract with tour providers at the new ports. Which is harder if it is not a normal port for NCL. Keep watching because there may be limited availability on tours they book. 

[Heartfelttraveler]

I check every day and call once or twice a week.  No one on our roll call sees any excursions.  The Ensenada port is on a Sunday so not sure if they will be able to secure excursions.  I am pretty sure the Blowhole center is closed.

 

The reason for this post is that we have two cruises booked with Norwegian that require overseas flights and this port uncertainty would be a real aggravation.  That is why I was curious if this is a common occurance with Norwegian.

Edited October 19, 2018 by Heartfelttraveler

[UFMOM]

We are on the same cruise and are disappointed with the port changes. I have heard that part of the problem is that it is a repositioning cruise, so ships that go to those ports as part of a weekly itinerary take precedence. I believe this was the reason they changed a tender port, as there wasn’t enough tenders. 

 I would look at your other cruises to see if they are repositioning ones. Also ships can miss ports due to weather, so again check out your ports and see if they are prone to weather related problems with docking. 

We have missed ports now and then for a variety of reasons on all cruise lines, with NCL no more than others, although this current Panama cruise seems to have had a lot of unpopular changes. 

 

 

Mary Ann

[v3cruiser]

I havent been overtly impressed with excursions offered on our upcoming cruise either. not many reviews at all. Few photos. I understand central america isnt traveled as much as Caribbean, but reading many of the excursion descriptions doesnt exactly make us all  that giddy as I know from browsing online that there is alot to see at most stops but some of the excursions are pretty milk toast when I know there is more to see but dont weant to do a private excursion without ncl's umbrella.

 

[Heartfelttraveler]

Just an update to our dilemma - NCL has put excursions (10 days to boarding) on offer and we have booked for the new ports.

I have only taken two NCL cruises to date and have enjoyed all the excursions booked threw NCL.  In fact, we have only booked cruise line excursions on all of our past cruises.  Our first private tours will be on our Oceania cruise in January.