SO frustrated with NCL shore excursions!

[abugs]

I don't know if I am the only one having problems with this or what. We leave for our first cruise to Alaska on 7/11. We originally decided on our shore excursions back in March and I faxed in the request. Never got an e-mail confirmation back. So, then I did the request on the NCL website. Again, never got a confirmation back. I really wanted something in writing, so I called them. Stayed on hold for over an hour and finally gave up. Called again and got a live person! They confirmed the excursions over the phone and said it looked good. I requested another confirmation e-mail. . .which never came. Spent a couple of days trying to call back and usually spent 20-30 min. on hold before giving up. Finally got through to a live person again, who said he'd be happy to send me a confirmation, which I DID receive. However, it was blank. Today I call and talk to a very nice woman who was quite sympathetic. . .especially after she had to tell me that we had NO shore excursions booked. Arrghhh! :mad:

 

I was able to rebook 2 out of the 3. The Misty Fjords Wildlife Quest, which was tops on our list, was sold out. I am so frustrated and I am sure DH is not going to be too happy either.

 

The rep. today told me that if ANY changes are made to your reservation, it wipes out the shore excursions you had booked. What kind of a system is that??? We have a T.A. handling our reservation, so we have no way of knowing what she's done and when. I suspect she called to reserve a crib for our 1 year old after we made the excursion request and, thus, they disappeared. So, even if I had gotten my original confirmation maybe they still would have been erased?!?

 

I really hope NCL can iron out these problems. I have been dealing with this for months and I'm so disappointed about missing out on the Wildlife Quest.

[lhall85917]

Sorry to hear that you've had so much trouble with your excursions, it certainly makes things more stressful. Please know that not everyone has had problems - we booked ours online the week after booking our trip, received email confirmation the next day. Hopefully your situation will work itself out.

What ship are you on? We leave on the Star July 4.

[romy]

I too am very sorry for your frustration. Personally, I didn't trust doing it online, so I called. Quite painless, I wasn't on hold for very long, the rep I spoke with booked our excursions and emailed me confirmation before we even hung up. I was also pleased with her attitude, very friendly and encouraging. She got me even more excited than I was to begin with.

 

The whole process took about 20 minutes at the most.

 

Have a wonderful time!!!

 

Happy Sailing!

 

Romy

[abugs]

I guess in some ways it is good to know it is just me having these problems and it's not widespread. After reading my confirmation for the excursions that I did manage to get booked today, I realized one of them was wrong. Instead of the White Pass Railway in Skagway, they booked us for the City Tour & Experience Music Project in Seattle. :( However, after yet another I was able to get it corrected and received confirmation. Woo hoo!

 

We are on the Star sailing on 7/11.

[babywewe]

can excursions be booked on ship also? I have'nt thought about doing so.... i was hopping to hear more peoples comments on what there is to etc....

 

a lot of people even say the excursions are a waste of money and your better off doing stuff alone (i'm talking about bermuda)

[lhall85917]

Yes, they can be booked on ship, but many times they are very busy and trips get booked quickly. We booked most of ours independently, we just did one through the ship because it was the same price as doing it on our own.

Its always a good idea to read through the boards, especially the Ports of Call section for opinions and suggestions for excursions - what to do, how to book, how to save money, etc. :cool:

[cruise pup]

I was getting frustrated about not receiving an e-mail confirmation and having very long waits when I called. I gave up for a while and finally called last week. Either they have increased their staff or the "rush" is over because I was connected to a representative almost immediately.

[romy]

The ony tours we booked thusfar were in St. Petersburg, Russia. You are required to obtain Visas there if you want to venture out on your own. We didn't obtain the Visas, so we booked our shore excursions through the cruiseline.

 

For most other ports in our itinerary we will either book right before we leave, book while we're on the ship, or go it on our own.

 

I cannot stand to be herded like cattle on busses. I much prefer to "find my own way" as long as there isn't a great distance to travel.

 

Happy Sailing!

 

Romy

[danfiveoh]

abugs:

We've been cruising for 15 years and book all of our excursions independant of the cruise line. The boards here are a great source of info, just look up the ports your going to and you'll find that lots of "critics" are willing to share info about excursions. You'll usually find a better, cheaper excursion and most often, can make reservations by e-mail.

[r4cents]

I booked shore excursions on-line with NCL. I too was concerned about not receiving a confirmation e-mail. I called NCL and she sent me an e-mail confirming the booking. I waited, and waited, it never showed up. After grumbling out loud, my daughter asked me what was up. I explained it to her and she asked if I'd checked my SPAM folder. Hmm, no, it hadn't occured to me. She explained to me that my computer might not have recognized it as real mail and tagged it as SPAM. Sure enough both confirmation e-mails were sitting in my SPAM folder. I printed them and am happy again.

 

Am I the only one? :-)

[richtersl]

As much as I can appreciate all the frustration with getting confirmations on excursions, I don't understand why you're all in such a big hurry to book them on line?

 

Perhaps things have changed since I last went on a cruise. We always waited until we got on the ship to decide where we wanted to go. Also, NCL did a great job showing on video what each port was like and where the excursions took you. Usually the printout that we received once we got on board had more excursion choices on it than the web site did. Is this no longer the case?

 

You also have a choice of booking a non-ship excursion that's comparable and maybe even less expensive (and crowded) than a ship's excursion.

 

And then there are some folks who just prefer to "wing it" once they get to a port.

 

There are some great suggestions and reviews on Cruise Critic of non-ship excursions. So, Cruise Critic itself is a great source of informaton about options. :D

[debihen]

We made several requests for confirmation letter/email for our shore excursions also. We were promised, every time, that they would be sent. We never got them:mad: . When we got aboard the Spirit, our shore excursion tickets were there, and you guessed it, they were wrong:eek: ! Thankfully, a trip to the shore excursion desk took care of the error, but had I received the confirmation as promised, we could have taken care of it earlier. This is an area that NCL really could improve on.

[MareT]

Check your spam folders as R4Cents said. Ours were sitting in there as well because they are sent from "unknown sender" with the subject line "shore excursion confirmation".

[romy]

Good point! Now that I think of it, my confirmations were in my "junk mail". Fortunately, I check that everyday.

 

Happy Sailing!

 

Romy

[shoreguy]

Check your spam folders as R4Cents said. Ours were sitting in there as well because they are sent from "unknown sender" with the subject line "shore excursion confirmation".

 

I had to change my profile with NCL and have emails sent to a seperate email. My company email just blocked and discarded confirmations as junk. I have to believe as well that some of the issues have been driven by spam filters. I would still replace the MIS team at NCL :rolleyes:

[ACCagent]

Several of my clients on Royal Caribbean had a lot of trouble with their shore ex bookings a couple of months ago and we were told at that time that the ship holds back 40% of the space for booking on board. That said, it may be that what appears to be "sold out" will really be available on your cruise. I'm not sure if NCL handles it the same way but would guess that they might.

[mousecruiser]

NCL does have a glitch in their system. :rolleyes:

Even if you have airline tickets through them and you get a last minute upgrade, make sure they also handle moving the air.

 

List of what happened:

Ship due to sail on Saturday

Upgrade on Thursday

Friday call to confirm air with the airlines and find out it does not exist anymore after seats were picked 2 months beforehand :eek:

Call NCL to find out what happened to our air :confused:

It left when the upgrade went through

Two hours later, NCL had us on another plane to a different airport, but at least we made the ship. :cool:

 

We now always double check everything the week before and every step of the way.

[abugs]

richtersl - The reason we wanted to book beforehand is because we had been told that some excursions would sell out, which is what happened to us. I don't know if it's just the Alaska excursions and other ports don't have that problem, but its what we were trying to avoid.

 

We do have a spam filter and I was checking that instead of my regular e-mail, since I assumed that's where it would come in. When they finally did come in after 4-5 requests, that is where they were. I even asked them to try sending to my yahoo account when I never received the confirmation e-mails sent to my home account. That never worked either. :confused:

 

I hope ACCagent is right and the excursions are not truly "full". We will try and book the "full" one once we board and keep our fingers crossed! Thanks, everyone, for the advice and feedback.

[chip brady]

Just because you get confirmation from NCL, don't bet on it. We had our confirmation, but when we got on the Dream we discovered they had us scheduled for 3 excursions in St. Petersburg at the same time!! When we tried to correct it we were told we would have to choose because 2 of the four were sold out!!!!!!! We ended up taking tours that were not as good.

We have cruised 5 times on NCL and we love their crews and service. Especially open dining. However, we will NEVER book another shore excursion with them. All except in Europe we have used PortPromotions.com and they are wonderful.

 

Chip Brady cb2052@earthlink.net

[Alaskadream10]

abugs - we will be on 7/11 alaska star with you. We had no problems booking excursions online and getting confirmation. Sorry you had problems. Hope the weather is good.

[masterbaker]

How far in advance does NCL make shore excursions available? We sail in April and have not been able to see what will be available yet on their website.

[Casshew]

Sorry to hear the excursion you wanted is now full :(

 

I was rather impressed by the shore excursion confirmations. I faxed on Monday and received the email confirmation tuesday. Everything was booked correctly except they charge adult rate for my daughter who is 10.

 

I printed the confirmation and faxed it back with a note to adjust the prices and recieved a new email the same day with everything correct.

 

Maybe there will be a cancellation and you will be able to do your first choice, good luck!

[VegasCath]

I read that the excursion info is available 90 days prior to your departure, but we are on the Star 9/26/04, and ours will not be available (per CC boards) for about another month.