Prima Meh

[Shynook11]

9 hours ago, robinium said:

Hey, I was also on this cruise and was very unhappy about the Observation Lounge closure. I was in touch with corporate while on the ship. 
 

We also experienced the same re: scrambling to get a refund of our private shorex for Isafjordur. I am continuing to press NCL corporate about the shady practice of continuing to sell Isafjordur as a stop up to embarkation when they already know they’re going to cancel. 
 

Did you get your 20% FCC from NCL yet? Ours hasn’t appeared in our account. 

Not yet on 20%....not sure we will use.   Eyeing a Pearl Greece itinerary for next summer...but not sure yet. 

[schmoopie17]

28 minutes ago, tgloersen said:

You can't argue with NCL cheerleaders.

Give me an "N".

Give me a "C".

Give me an "L".

What's it spell?

Amazingly, even though there are only three letters, sometimes it spells a four-letter word. 😁

[Shynook11]

6 hours ago, dexddd said:

Welcome to CC. 

yes 4 pp in cabin, drink package tips, specialty dining tips, 3 pp thermal suite plus tips and I am including the air cost in the 16K total as we bought through NCL.  Am not including shore excursions.   Bottom line if they have a problem with cabin noise that is documented, they should offer some small compensation for those who suffer through the noise.

[Steff79]

44 minutes ago, tgloersen said:

You can't argue with NCL cheerleaders.

missing the birdy with you can´t compare prima to the big ships, you should compare to the small ships and that could happen to you at every other cruise line too. :-)))))

[FLAHAM]

No mention by OP of Indulge, a great innovation by NCL?

[Shynook11]

8 minutes ago, Steff79 said:

missing the birdy with you can´t compare prima to the big ships, you should compare to the small ships and that could happen to you at every other cruise line too. :-)))))

We have been on the Pearl, Sun, Escape and Epic.  Loved them all.  Not Prima. Concept is not great for our family for sure.

Edited June 23, 2023 by Shynook11

[YVRteacher]

9 hours ago, robinium said:

Hey, I was also on this cruise and was very unhappy about the Observation Lounge closure. I was in touch with corporate while on the ship. 
 

We also experienced the same re: scrambling to get a refund of our private shorex for Isafjordur. I am continuing to press NCL corporate about the shady practice of continuing to sell Isafjordur as a stop up to embarkation when they already know they’re going to cancel. 
 

Did you get your 20% FCC from NCL yet? Ours hasn’t appeared in our account. 

Hi! Just a little note that when I have received FCC it doesn’t actually show up anywhere I can see it, but when I phone NCL to ask about it they can see it from their end.

[Steff79]

escape i love.

 

meant the user bird, he tells that all the people who write something bad about prima :-)))

sorry, was more a fun post.

 

i was three weeks at prima, some things i liked, some things not, but many things feel to small and crowded,sadly. like many people wrote here.

 

and that should now not sound  bad, but if i can chose the room, i would not book a rom above or under or next to public rooms.

Edited June 23, 2023 by Steff79

[Shynook11]

Here is a small sampling of the daily 6am-10pm noise.  I have videos as well as audio to prove this was IN the cabin above us, but this upload is audio only.  Maybe others think this is reasonable noise for 16 hour a day in a cabin.  These are chairs sliding across the surfside girl.   Turn audio up.  Interested in opinions if I am overreacting.

[Agent999]

15 hours ago, Shynook11 said:

I would expect a cruise credit or partial refund.  Not a lot....but something for the 11 days of unnecessary frustration.   We have never had an issue on any cruise even remotely like this.   Had they followed up as they were supposed to do onboard and provide me with the paperwork documenting the problems, it would have been better.  Limited seating....just you wait until you are aboard.  This ship is something else entirely with regards to the venues vs passenger capacity.  You can read about it in almost every review.  Same problems.

 

 

Sure, I figured it was all about squeezing money out of them, but I'm not sure that "meh" merits compensation. It will not happen that 100% of the people approve of everything 100% of the time...you simply can't compensate those who don't simply based on their own personal likes/dislikes.

 

Seems like a lot of the "unnecessary frustration" was self-caused. You should have just complained once. You choose to create daily video documentation and you choose to make daily GS visits to complain. You did this while knowing there was no way they could move you or fix the issue onboard. That aside, since you had all of the video evidence, why would you even need their paperwork documentation? You had/have better documentation already.

 

And I have been onboard. Didn't experience the issues in the overblown way that you've described. As noted before, no venue and any ship has unlimited seating, nor are there any venues that can accommodate the entire passenger compliment. I can't see "limited seating" as a viable position until you can name the venue that doesn't have this problem. Look at Syd Norman's. The venue is small and intimate. That is WHY it is so popular. They could put the same show in the main theater with hundreds of seats, except that people simply wouldn't enjoy the experience in the same way.

[ngrund]

First rule of cabin selection-cabins above, cabins below-

 

On another note, Indulge would probably be the only reason I would want to sail on a Prima class ship again, until/unless they greatly improve size/configuration of the public spaces on future ships.

[luv2kroooz]

27 minutes ago, Steff79 said:

missing the birdy with you can´t compare prima to the big ships, you should compare to the small ships and that could happen to you at every other cruise line too. :-)))))

Oh no, don't encourage it.

 

That old, overused position falls flat on its face with most fair thinking members...Prima is smaller than Joy so of course the lounges on Prima are smaller. But, Prima is bigger than Gem so of course the lounges on Prima are bigg.....or maybe not. Where's a rock to crawl under??

[UKstages]

35 minutes ago, Shynook11 said:

Bottom line if they have a problem with cabin noise that is documented, they should offer some small compensation for those who suffer through the noise.

forget the compensation, they should fix the underlying problem or not sell those cabins. no compensation is adequate for (in my case) three nights of lost sleep and three more days to recover.

 

26 minutes ago, FLAHAM said:

No mention by OP of Indulge, a great innovation by NCL?

many reviews mention the indulge food hall. the food is great, it’s an innovative concept, but flawed in its execution. if there aren’t enough seats, you don’t have have a viable dining venue.

 

 

[DCGuy64]

3 minutes ago, UKstages said:

no compensation is adequate for (in my case) three nights of lost sleep and three more days to recover.

You mean every single passenger missed 3 nights sleep? Wow. Sounds more like a light sleeper than anything else. If cruise lines had to compensate people who were easily awakened, they'd go out of business. It would have to be both egregious (above a certain dB level) and widespread (more than 10% of total cabins) to merit action by the cruise line. (IMHO)

[Agent999]

52 minutes ago, UKstages said:

many reviews mention the indulge food hall. the food is great, it’s an innovative concept, but flawed in its execution. if there aren’t enough seats, you don’t have have a viable dining venue.

 Context please. How many seats would it need to have (please provide a number) for it to be viable? What area or areas on the ship would you be willing to get rid of for this expansion? What percentage of the passengers on a ship should be able to have a seat at the same time in order to make a dining venue viable? I've seen a number of dining venues on NCL ships with far fewer seats that are perfectly viable. This is just the limited seating fallacy part two.

[Cruising Lynne]

4 minutes ago, Agent999 said:

 Context please. How many seats would it need to have (please provide a number) for it to be viable? What area or areas on the ship would you be willing to get rid of for this expansion? What percentage of the passengers on a ship should be able to have a seat at the same time in order to make a dining venue viable? I've seen a number of dining venues on NCL ships with far fewer seats that are perfectly viable. This is just the limited seating fallacy part two.

For Indulge, since there is a Starbucks in the atrium. they could remove the one from Indulge, which would give space for more seating.

[robinium]

1 hour ago, YVRteacher said:

Hi! Just a little note that when I have received FCC it doesn’t actually show up anywhere I can see it, but when I phone NCL to ask about it they can see it from their end.

Thanks for the heads up! I’ll ask a rep about it, cheers 

[Cruising Lynne]

Never been a cheerleader, but I listened to the audio. This noise is not that bad. I would never book under the Garden Cafe, but that is just me. Ear plugs and some white noise could be a big help if you want to nap. Do not think compensation is warranted. Some chocolate covered strawberries and wine would be a nice gesture.

[DCGuy64]

12 minutes ago, Cruising Lynne said:

Never been a cheerleader, but I listened to the audio. This noise is not that bad. I would never book under the Garden Cafe, but that is just me. Ear plugs and some white noise could be a big help if you want to nap. Do not think compensation is warranted. Some chocolate covered strawberries and wine would be a nice gesture.

I agree with @Cruising Lynne. I listened to the clip with my speakers at the highest volume and it was minimal noise. Do I understand correctly that the cabin was under the Garden Café? If so, I agree with the poster who said this is basically the result of not checking the location prior to booking. We always try and book cabins with only other cabins above and below us. I would not expect compensation for something I should have known beforehand. Compensation is only appropriate when something unforeseeable occurs. Moving furniture, etc. around in the café is NOT unforeseeable; it's to be expected.

Edited June 23, 2023 by DCGuy64
Added other poster's handle.

[UKstages]

1 hour ago, DCGuy64 said:

You mean every single passenger missed 3 nights sleep?

i clearly said “in my case.” did you somehow miss those words smack dab in the middle of the sentence? in fact, NCL corporate has already compensated me for this. so, clearly there was some validity to my complaint.
 

the curious thing about this is that i documented this issue in a lengthy cruise critic thread. well, that’s not the curious thing. the curious thing is that you yourself posted six or seven times in that thread, at first saying that “you feel for the OP” (that would be me). and you concluded:

 

“if enough people bring this to NCL's attention, it should be fixed at the first dry dock. i haven't had a chance to peruse many of the prima reviews yet, but if what you say is true and many passengers had the same experience as yours, it certainly sounds like something worth investigating and fixing.”

 

what made you change your mind?

 

25 minutes ago, Agent999 said:

Context please.

i’ve posted over 20,000 words about the prima here on cruise critic. I invite you to go find them and read them. there’s a detailed and lengthy review and there is a separate thread about extraordinary noise in my cabin.
 

i gave the indulge food hall a largely favorable review, but noted the difficulty in finding a seat, as have many others. it’s not my job to figure out the optimum number of seats in a dining venue. it’s my job to walk in to the food hall, find a seat and chow down. if the design of the venue prohibits me from doing that, I’m duty bound to point that out in a fair and impartial review.

[ngrund]

Its not just the total # of seats in Indulge that should be corrected-

 

If you sit at one of the stations, then you can only order from their menu-it makes no sense that you shouldn't be able to order from them all-that takes out (if I recall correctly) 30 or more seats unless you only want that type of food. Most of the appeal is that you can have variety-

 

[Oceansaway17]

3 hours ago, schmoopie17 said:

Based on the title of this thread (and our mediocre experience on the Prima)...maybe NCL should just go ahead and officially change the ship's name to Primeh.

aw thanks for the chuckle.

I am amazed at how many negatives on this ship.

I loved the Bliss and the Escape as well as the Dawn.  I will stick to those.

[VTSteerage]

We are leaving on the July 16 departure northbound to Iceland from Southampton.  We made our reservation in a balcony cabin in October 2021.  It includes 4 specialty dinners and NCL airfare from and back to Boston.  The airfare alone has proven to be a huge savings, given what has happened to trans-Atlantic fares in the interim.  While we have read the reviews of the Prima, my wife and I are going with an open mind.  It seems like the public areas get the negatives, while the cabins get kudos.  We'll roll with the flow and hope all the ports happen.  Since 1983, we've been on RCCL, Holland America, and NCL cruises.  All of them have dropped a bit over the years (remember chocolates on your pillow and midnight buffets?), but cruises are still a great value for your money. 

[yakcruiser]

8 hours ago, Cruising Lynne said:

For Indulge, since there is a Starbucks in the atrium. they could remove the one from Indulge, which would give space for more seating.

I remember reading somewhere on this site they were going to do exactly this on the Viva.

[Agent999]

8 hours ago, UKstages said:

I've posted over 20,000 words about the prima here on cruise critic. I invite you to go find them and read them. there’s a detailed and lengthy review and there is a separate thread about extraordinary noise in my cabin.

Why? This isn't about you and alleged noise. It was stated that there aren't enough seats. I just simply asked how many seats would be "enough". Give me a number. Simple question. Yet you avoid answering it as though you'd rather be evasive and argue instead of providing some understanding and definition to "enough". You can tell me how may words you've spewed, but not how many seats are needed?

 

Nobody said it was your job (there you go again creating words to argue against), but if you're fair and impartial, don't say what is wrong when you can't say what is right.