Delayed Posting of Shore Excursions

[Delmar Sam]

My wife and I are booked on the January 5, 2024 sailing of the Norwegian Sun, sailing through the Panama Canal from Miami to San Antonio, Chile. Although the cruise departs 6 months from tomorrow, NCL has posted only 15 excursions - all for the first couple of pre-canal ports. They haven’t added any since we booked in April. 

We’ve taken more than 35 cruises and never had this experience before. This is our first ocean cruise since the pandemic and only our second on NCL. Their agents claim that they don’t always have the excursions posted until 4 to 6 months before the cruise.  Is this really typical for NCL or for cruise lines in general post-pandemic.  Or is something more suspicious afoot, akin to all of NCL’s recent cruise and full cruise season cancellations and wholesale itinerary changes?

 

[3Sisters]

@Delmar Sam That's not a lot to choose from! I too would be disappointed with that minimal amount of excursion options. Do you believe that the cruise line will open up more excursion options in the coming months? I don't see why this itinerary is so limited with excursion options. Post-pandemic many cruise lines, including NCL, have changed a lot of their ways and have made significant cutbacks. As much as guests have been complaining about the decline of service from NCL, people are still booking out itineraries and staying loyal to the line. I'm not sure if the line is doing so great financially. I really hope some of the recent changes with upper management turn things around, creating more positive guest feedback. I have heard more bad than good about the line lately. Your Panama Canal itinerary sounds pretty epic though! Have you toured this region before?

[Delmar Sam]

@3Sisters We haven't sailed through the canal before, but have traveled over land from Colon to Panama City on a cruise excursion. We have also visited Cartagena and have made 3 previous extended visits to Chile. This cruise will fill in many blanks along the way.  We have chosen NCL only once previously, for a Hawaiian cruise almost 20 years ago.  We picked it this time solely for the itinerary. All the other trans-canal cruises turned north with multiple stops in Mexico, not one of our favorite places to visit.  I must say that I am not impressed so far.

I have refrained from booking our own private tours so far for a couple of reasons - One of their touted benefits when we booked was a $50 credit per port for excursions booked through NCL. Of course, they have to offer excursions for this to be worth anything. Beyond that, I don't trust them to adhere to their published itinerary. It looks like they have been playing fast and loose on many future sailings.

There are literally 207 ways that they try to nickel and dime passengers, even pre-sailing, all of them calculated to run up. I can't wait to see what they do once we are on board.

I have to keep reminding myself that we picked this cruise for the itinerary and that it seems that many of the cruise lines are doing the same thing.

[3Sisters]

@Delmar Sam The itinerary sounds pretty fantastic, so I hope the line pulls through for you guys. You are very well-traveled having visited so many different areas in South America already! I believe you will find that NCL today is quite different that NCL 20 years ago! I'm hopeful that NCL will adhere to its stated itinerary but unfortunately, that doesn't always happen. You can always look up alternate ways to book excursions if the line doesn't pull through. The ship will surely be enjoyable, but I'm hearing many negatives about the customer service lately. The lack of excursion options is just one of those negatives. Ideally, you will be able to get off at all the listed ports of call and truly enjoy your vacation, even if you have to look for excursions outside of NCL's scope. 

[Delmar Sam]

3 hours ago, 3Sisters said:

@Delmar Sam The itinerary sounds pretty fantastic, so I hope the line pulls through for you guys. You are very well-traveled having visited so many different areas in South America already! I believe you will find that NCL today is quite different that NCL 20 years ago! I'm hopeful that NCL will adhere to its stated itinerary but unfortunately, that doesn't always happen. You can always look up alternate ways to book excursions if the line doesn't pull through. The ship will surely be enjoyable, but I'm hearing many negatives about the customer service lately. The lack of excursion options is just one of those negatives. Ideally, you will be able to get off at all the listed ports of call and truly enjoy your vacation, even if you have to look for excursions outside of NCL's scope. 

Thank you for your positive thinking. It helps!

[Kendall James-Vargas]

@Delmar Sam That's not a lot of excursion options but many in the next couple of months you will see more options open up. You definitely don't want to miss out on that  $50 credit per port for excursions booked through NCL. You could always book excursions once you get on board Norwegian Sun, but it hinders your opportunity to fully plan out your port day itineraries. Keep us posted if any new excursion options become available in the coming weeks.

[Delmar Sam]

I just spoke yet again with a rather nasty agent at the NCL Shore Excursions Desk about the lack of additional excursions. Her basic message was that the excursions will be posted when they are ready to be posted and that I should just continue to be patient and keep checking the website.  I tried to tell her that I was past being patient and that asking travelers to repeatedly check the cruise line's website was not a good look for the company, but she kept interrupting me to repeat her canned message.

Look folks, it may well be true that NCL is exercising diligence in arranging responsible excursions and that all will be worked out well before cruising time.  But it's also possible that either they are having difficulty in making excursion arrangements for this itinerary which could result in cancellation of some of the port calls or something more nefarious is going on that will not end happily for all of us.

Either way, if I'm going to have to keep checking online in the hope of discovering that there are finally excursions posted, I'm also going to continue to let them know that they need to be straight with us.  I hope you will too. The NCL Shore Excursions Desk can be reached at 866-625-1167. Be ready to provide your reservation number and the ship name and sailing date. Maybe you will be able to ask a question before you are interrupted.

[3Sisters]

@Delmar Sam I like your tenacity and how on top of it you are. I agree that you should make your frustrations known. Unfortunately, I encounter robotic customer service agents far too often. I don't enjoy talking to customer service agents because it oftentimes feels like I'm talking to a wall. I really hope the cruise line follows through with its advertised ports of call. After all of the time and energy you are putting into this, I really hope it pays off for you. Otherwise, I think you will be more than furious and disappointed at the cruise line's efforts, or should I say, lack of effort.

Edited July 19, 2023 by 3Sisters