Guarantee of cabin category I think

kath x

marjrie wrote:

I have been looking at 2 cruises on the Jade, even though the 13 nights
from Barcelona is cheaper I am thinking if I wait a bit longer will
probably go for the 14 nts in and out of Southampton, by the time we
buy flights to Barcelona (even cheap ones) then make our way home from
Southampton at the end of the cruise, I think it will be better to
drive to the port and leave the car so it is there at the end. Not sure
how much parking will cost, but as we are only a couple of hours away
it seems a better option.

Ex Southampton is great if you get the deal, parking is worth around £100 if included(only on UK bookings) so still cheaper to go through the US.

NCL use AB parking, forget trying to find cheaper/more convenient unless you do a hotel package.

http://www.abparking.co.uk/index.asp?q_id=106

Final payment is due on the May 30th cruise and the June 13 is due on March 30th so price may drift down for that one after that, Check cabin availability on the NCL uk site, for each grade when there are less than 6 cabins left you know that grade is running out.

I have been watching this topic with interest, I was thinking of booking an Island or Ocean Village cruise, but now keep on seeing that for about the same money could maybe do NCL which is better?
Can anyone tell me what is meant by better, in what ways is it better than OV for example?
Thanks in advance.

cazza1 wrote:

I have been watching this topic with interest, I was thinking of booking an Island or Ocean Village cruise, but now keep on seeing that for about the same money could maybe do NCL which is better?
Can anyone tell me what is meant by better, in what ways is it better than OV for example?
Thanks in advance.

Not been on OV but read a lot of reviews, done plenty NCL.

If you look at the brochures(read the stuff about the cruise line) you will get a feel for the primary difference from a cruise marketing point of view

Both have similar styles but I think NCL wins out with more food choices, I also like the international mix of passengers, when it comes to shows/entertainment it all blends into one after a few years. I think OV wins out on lower grade cabin sizes being much bigger. NCl ships are newer. Whenever we have had OV or NCL to choose from NCL has been cheaper.

OV prices do seem to be dropping though which makes them more competative.

I have done both all be it a very short NCL and the difference is huge
NCL is a far better product for about the same price in many cases and often cheaper
The main differences for me between the 2 were qualitly of food/choice, entertainment and the ship(Gem) all were 1000% better than OV.
Compare staying in a top class hotel to a 3* costa hotel and your not far off the mark. I am not knocking the 3* costa hotels if that what you want but if you want to cruise on a ship offering top class service, food and entertainment then choose NCL
NCL often offer over 10 restraunts to choose from
OV 4 inc the poolside cafe.
I have seen Balconies on NCL sell for the same price as an Inside on OV for me its a no brainer

I second everything TravelMandy has said, absolutely spot on. We have been on both Island ships, but discovered better value and would not sail with Island again.

Forgot to mention Island

Done Escape once and at the budget end it is still very good value, £299pp for flight transfers and 7 days round the med, say £210pp+£89 flight transfers Palma, comes in at £30pppd, say worth £40pppd max and thats package price of £369 readily available on both Escape and Star outside the school hols.

7 nights on the Gem ex BCN around £435 so £62pppd so Island can still compete on price.

When it comes to allocating budget I would go for better ship over better cabin.

For top value if you like ship time are the open jaw cruises with sea days, when you can find the flights, especialy the Transatlantics.

The Island Escape is a very "old bird", and it shows! My experience with pricing is that the headline 7 night price of £299 ends up at £400-£450 by the time they tell you the cheapest cabins have gone (were they ever there?) and add airport supplement, flight meal, fuel supplement etc. It is not worth that money in my opinion, and the cabins are decrepit to say the least (including the so called premium ones).

The Island Star is a much more modern ship, and is possibly worth doing at the right price. But better value can be had elsewhere.

If you are totally flexible in when you can go, there is great value to be had. We are sailing on the NCL Jade on 30 May for 14 nights. It cost us £500, and return flight Glasgow to Southampton is £65. As TravelMandy said...it's a no-brainer!

Just printed our cruise tickets for the 30th May NCL Jade cruise. It seemed a lifetime away back in early October when we booked it but only 9 weeks to go and counting !

Bob

There is no disputing there is better value but not always for when people want it or for the length they want. For any given point in time the value can move around.

For someone looking for a 7day trip during the next school hols(staring weekend after this one) then Island come up as good value. Costa might come close but not much else, You might get the flight sups but the the £299 does become available and include fuel,and tips, I have someone pricing the star for next week and they are getting the current £349 price and this is a school hols week. (£339 today)

These 14n £500 deals are rare(last one we got was Sundream Canaries) and this Jade trip was a price error last Oct so not that representative.

Hi Bob

Not sure what you meant by printing the tickets for Jade 30th May there are 6 of us booked on same cruise is it possible to print your own tickets

Shocked to see it is only 9 weeks away

Hi Prindy

If you go to ncl.com/edocs and put your name and reservation number in, your cruise tickets should appear. I was told that there was no tickets sent from agent and you print your own. Good luck !

Bob

I agree with W/J that 14 night deals at £500 are rare, and that at very short notice Island prices may offer good value, certainly on the Star if not the Escape.

The Island cruises include airfare and, at short notice, you would not get cheap fares to anywhere.

Not sure how you can say that the £500 cruise only deal for 14 nights on NCL Jade for 30 May, which was available last October during a two day "window", was a price error!! The reason I say that is right now the previous sailing to that one, on May 17, which is 13 nights is available for just under £500 and represents a fantastic bargain. The route is Barcelona, round France and Italy, right across Med and a number of stops en-route to Southampton. A one way flight to Barcelona can still be had cheaply.

It may well be that the 30 May pricing, which is currently at approximately £750 will come down in the next few weeks.

hamrag wrote:

Not sure how you can say that the £500 cruise only deal for 14 nights on NCL Jade for 30 May, which was available last October during a two day "window", was a price error!! The reason I say that is right now the previous sailing to that one, on May 17, which is 13 nights is available for just under £500 and represents a fantastic bargain. The route is Barcelona, round France and Italy, right across Med and a number of stops en-route to Southampton. A one way flight to Barcelona can still be had cheaply.

It may well be that the 30 May pricing, which is currently at approximately £750 will come down in the next few weeks.

Here is what I think happened,I watch prices very closly.

NCL made some price modifications and priced this 14n cruise at £1k for the uk market and set the US price to $1k at the same time(this was the error), forget the exact price but you get the idea, they were exacly the same for the 2day window then it went up to around $1500, ok US price add tax etc and then get a discount through an agent to get back to the £500.

I was very tempted to book but we were doing basicly the same Itinery that Oct on the Gem and have done this sort of trip a lot.

NCL do have a problem selling thier open jaw cruises I got the Gem inagural at a bargain price(£450 I think not at home to check) after final payment in the US there is room for the price drops for those with flexability so hopefully our June price will drop in the middle of may.

The price did seen ridiculously low at the time Just glad I logged on to this site and saw it

Bob

Windjammer I presume you mean that NCL made an error of judgement and not an error! There is a subtle difference between the two.

Presumably you consider them to have made the same error of judgement now for the 17 May cruise which is available on vtg at $819 plus taxes etc. for an inside cabin, and directly on NCL at a headlined $799, although it is $849 by the time you get to cabin category decision. An outside cabin is $999 plus taxes etc.

hamrag wrote:

Windjammer I presume you mean that NCL made an error of judgement and not an error! There is a subtle difference between the two..

Not at all this was not a woops we priced this a bit low we better put the prices up

This was a real error someone entered the the wrong price in the US system and lucky for some it took them two days to Find/Fix it.

You got lucky

hamrag wrote:

Presumably you consider them to have made the same error of judgement now for the 17 May cruise which is available on vtg at $819 plus taxes etc. for an inside cabin, and directly on NCL at a headlined $799, although it is $849 by the time you get to cabin category decision. An outside cabin is $999 plus taxes etc..

You should stop presuming things about what I might be thinking

I don't think thee is any "error of judgement" if there was any it was made by having the prices too high before and getting left with too many cabins, looking at availability if anything thing they may still be a bit to high and have to drop again to shift them all depends how long the current pricing has been on(not watching this cruise).

What you may not have noticed is that for an II grade it is cheaper through the UK at NCL prices £549/$1210.(both with fuel and TX) even with BPC pricing at $1,012.52 there is a good chance a UK agent could better it.

What you don't see is the real deals that come close to sailing date when they secretly reduce the price of the suites and go round offering them to people.

Still think you are wrong W/J, unless you have an inside contact at NCL.

Back in October last year the 13 June sailing was priced at $999 plus taxes etc. and the 30 May sailing was priced at $899 plus taxes etc. We were tracking both dates at that time. The day before we finally booked for 30 May the 13 June price went up to $1499. Under the W/J does deals thread I alerted HT to this, suggesting that the 30 May price would also go up. It did, but not until the following day!

I can accept that it is possible someone could make a price error on the NCL system, but it would be highly unlikely that "someone entered the wrong price" i.e made two price errors for both cruises!

Apart from anything else the prices were listed on vacationstogo as well as the NCL web-site.

It is still my opinion that I, and a good few others, spotted a real bargain and got it. It seems highly improbable that this was a keying error into the system for both dates as you are suggesting. Also the 17 May cruise is at roughly the same £500 price. Hope others, who may be free to cruise on 17 May, are spotting and booking this one!

It is always good to read your posts, but I honestly think you are wrong on this one....sorry!

Perhaps you will both have to agree to disagree on this one.

luci