Been There Done That Too…

NCL

// January 5th, 1999 // Hate'm, NCL

Norwegian Dream Nightmare
Scandinavian Capitals 1998.

The unforgivable sins that assured we would never come back to ANY NCL branded ship!

•In most ports we like to tour independently – if possible. Every cruise line we have ever been on, EXCEPT NCL, always has information available for independent minded travelers, some – like Orient Lines even arrange with the Chambers of Commerce for FREE SHUTTLES to run into the main area of town for the convenience of passengers and crew. Not only does NCL not provide info, they do everything they possibly can to DISCOURAGE passengers from doing anything outside of their tours! They even DISCOURAGE TAXIS from being anywhere near their ships so you don’t have a choice! This became painfully obvious in Copenhagen. The dock in Copenhagen is literally right along a street. In the berth in front of the Norwegian Dream was a Cunard ship – with a line of Taxis next to it! Not one single taxi stopped anywhere near the Dream – and they had to go past her after they turned around to park at the Cunard ship. Gee… wonder if it was a coincidence that the Dream was selling $15 transfers into the city center, which was more than what a taxi round-trip cost.

•They bad mouthed Orient Lines – which they had just purchased. One of the senior staff I was talking to (who knew I was a huge OL fan) did everything he could to slam Orient Lines, saying that Mr. Harrod (the owner of Orient Lines) was so far in debt where Orient Lines was concerned that he had to sell. This was an outright LIE. NCL is the one with serious debt problems – and a serious occupancy problem on its ships. Orient Lines has a very high occupancy rate, a tremendous return passenger rate, and is profitable. Did you know NCL stands for “No Cash Lines?” (Note: NCL is now owned by Star Cruises – they’ve got a great bottom line).

•The final insult, and the last straw, was on disembarkation day. We didn’t have to be out of our cabins until 8:30am, and we didn’t have to leave the ship until 10:00am. At 5:45 AM – Yes, a quarter to six in the MORNING, they started BLARING disembarkation announcements through the entire ship, in every cabin – EVERY FIFTEEN MINUTES! As I have stated before, I am NOT a morning person. I had planned to get up at 8:00am and be out of the cabin at 8:30am. By 6:15am I was so FURIOUS I called the pursers desk. They tried to tell me it was “For Security Reasons.” What a load of bullshit. They must think all of their passengers are stupid – and I told the purser that. I also informed the purser I had cruised on 7 other cruise lines, and NONE of them had ever done anything so DRACONIAN, and I wouldn’t be cruising NCL again. I also told him – that the ship didn’t have any Security – everyone knew there had been a stowaway onboard for 2 days on this cruise. If they wanted to say “Ok, your cruise is over get the hell off our ship (and don’t come back),” they did a beautiful job. (I recently read NCL is changing their disembarkation procedures – and will let passengers leave their cabins leisurely. Wonder if they’ll still do the announcements?)

Rumour has it they’ve addressed some of these issues in the last 10 years, like the 5:45am disembarkation BS, but they’ve lowered customer service standards elsewhere. They don’t have a very good “customer service” reputation. (Check out cruisecritic.com if ya’ don’t believe me)