Opinions? Should NCL charge & include more so there's less nickel and diming?

[electricron]

I agree with those preferring the lower price.

 

Why should I pay for something I don't want or need?

 

Give me the lowest fares possible, and then nickle and dime those who want more.

[CruisinMatt]

All inclusive with no bill at the end is what I like.

[KroozNut]

Just carry more nickels and dimes, problem solved. :p

 

If you WANT an all inclusive cruise package there are other lines doing this.

 

Cheers,

 

Norman

 

Can you suggest a few mass market all inclusive lines?

[SailAways]

On our cruise, we did not encounter any time when we felt pressured to buy or participate in anything which we were not interested in.

 

So, I am curious what causes people to feel that they are being "Nickel and Dimmed" at all.

[Titan(ic)5.6]

On our cruise, we did not encounter any time when we felt pressured to buy or participate in anything which we were not interested in.

 

So, I am curious what causes people to feel that they are being "Nickel and Dimmed" at all.

 

Being constantly harassed over the LOUDspeaker to attend art autions, get a spa treatment, buy shore excursions, etc.

[Heytoots]

I don't object to paying for the extras.....and keeping the base price of the cruise low enough so everyone can enjoy...but..I do object to them "taking away" things that were there before, AND still charging the same price.

Paying for the spa, excursions, drinks, casino, photos, speciality restaurants is fine and should be expected. But cutting corners by possibly eliminating items from the buffet, and using less quality products is something that takes away from the vacation experience.

[hotspur]

We haven't experienced the recently updated menus yet, but if the quality of choices in the main dining room has in fact been cut significantly, I'd rather pay a bit more and return to the pre-2006 menus. Yes, you may be able to pay that same extra to eat in the fee dining rooms, but the requirement to make reservations--especially if it must be done the day you board the ship--really defeats the purpose of "freestyle" dining.

 

Other than this one item, there is nothing that is considered part of the so-called "nickel-and-diming" that I'd want to pay for in the cruise price. Not the spa, the photos, the booze, sodas, bingo--nor, in fact, just about anything else. And every mass-market cruise line nickels-and-dimes, including Celebrity and HAL.

[Vyhanek]

I agree with the pp's and would rather pay for the extras seperately.

 

The only issue is that NCL (and the other lines) have nickeled and dimed the food and reduced it to a level that is just about unacceptable. NCL, if you read this, No more messing with the food! Find another place to cut costs because the food has taken a big enough hit.

[SailAways]

QUOTE=Titan(ic)5.6]Being constantly harassed over the LOUDspeaker to attend art autions, get a spa treatment, buy shore excursions, etc.

 

 

The only announcements that I recall were pertinent to ports, activities, etc. Perhaps there were others, but if so, they certainly must not have been offensive to us.

[Seago2]

How about the constant "gold and silver by the inch" announcements?

[Ilandguy]

Any thing that starts to effect the quality or value of the Cruise experience will turn people away in search of other vacations. The quality of meals has definitely gone down on almost all lines in the past five years. There is always a price break point where people will not spend more money on services.The higher cost of drinks will just make me cut back and the cruise line will not be gaining more revenue. Well priced promotions do improve sales. On a ship happy carefree passengers will spend more in the end. People will pay a small premium if there is value to it. I have bought wine packages in the past resulting in spending more on wine than if I bought it by the bottle & probably even gambled more the casino after dinner as result of enjoying the wine with dinner! If you are going to charge for something that was included in the past it should be a noticeably better service or of greater quality in my opionion!

[idreamofparis]

The only "extra" I think it's silly to charge for is soft drinks. It seems very odd that I can have as much steak as I want, but must pay extra for a soda. It's just syrup and water, after all. :confused:

 

I'll get the soda card, but $5.95 per day is such a small amount that it should just be included, especiallly because the actual cost of soda is so low.

[Daisydog7]

I don't like the policy of adding the gratuity onto the final bill without prior notice. Luckily, if you go to the purser's desk the Friday before disembarkation, the gratuity will be removed at your request. You can then tip according to your desire. Frankly, I prefer to hand the tips out myself, thus assuring that the entire tip goes to the person I want it to. I have this funny feeling that with the automatic tips, NCL keeps a piece.

Before the automated tip became a common practice, I think service was much, much better.

[hotspur]

I don't like the policy of adding the gratuity onto the final bill without prior notice. Luckily, if you go to the purser's desk the Friday before disembarkation, the gratuity will be removed at your request. You can then tip according to your desire. Frankly, I prefer to hand the tips out myself, thus assuring that the entire tip goes to the person I want it to. I have this funny feeling that with the automatic tips, NCL keeps a piece.

Before the automated tip became a common practice, I think service was much, much better.

I would really find it a problem to hand money to everyone serving me in a buffet, or at every waiter and assistant waiter who took care of me in a dining room. We've done two "traditional" dining cruises (HAL and Celebrity) and found the service to be no better than on NCL, although there was a lot more phony "buttering-up" being done by the dining room staff.

 

I have this "funny feeling" that people who object to "automatic tipping" are just trying to weasel out of giving the staff a decent tip.

[Baitman19]

I have to totally agree with hotspur. When we sailed on Celebrity, we had table of 8. On the last night when the tips were to be given out only four of us showed up. The auto-gratuity is better. Nobody gets stiffed!

 

If you add up the suggested gratuity for Celebrity, it comes out to about the a same as NCL or even a little more.

 

$10.00 per day is VERY reasonable!

 

Happy Sailing,

Monty

[Tomct]

[quote name='abbyndrewmom']I too agree to a certain extent, like others we are not big drinkers, I like diet pepsi so I bring my own, we don't use the spa or the internet.

I am little concerned about the quality of the food in the main dinning rooms. I know you can pay extra and upgrade to the speciality restaurants but I would like to see "good" food offered in the dinning room as well. I don't want to feel like you have to eat at one of the speciality restaurants to get a good meal. I like eating in the main dinning room as I feel that is part of the unique cruise experience, to me the speciality restaurants seem like restaurants that I can eat at on land vacations. Our first NCL cruise is in 3 weeks and I hope that we will like the new menu and can come back and report great things. Dh is a chef so we tend to be pretty easy going with our food choices we like to try different entrees. From what I can tell alot of the criticsm of the new menu is because it is not your typical American Bar & Grill food, which will not be an issue for us.[/QUOTE]


For the record, we like it the way it is, paying for extras you choose vs. paying up front for those you might not use. But as for the food, I'm of the opinion that the fee for Specialty restaurants is not for getting better food, but rather for the particular selection of food available, and the service and atmosohere you select. We happen to prefer the specialties because we basically know what we will be eating in advance, because the menu will be the same each evening. With the general dining rooms, though you can look at the menus in advance, you may not always be thrilled with the items available. That doesn't mean the food is not high quality, just maybe not always to your liking, especially if you are more selective than most. Our cruising has been limited to NCL, so can not campare to other lines and traditional cruising. However, we've spent approximately 50 nights on board so far, and there has been only one dinner where we were not pleased with our meal or meal selection, and that happened to be because of the "theme" that evening. But guess what, we picked what we liked from the meal, and since alternate food is available all over the ship, we actually survived until breakfast the next day.

I hope you enjoy your cruise and the menu NCL has to offer.