Always Complain

This was a day of catharsis. I had a number of complaints and had already registered some of them. Today was a day for answers. I spoke with the Restaurant Manager and a Customer Services Supervisor. All the issues were dealt with very well and I felt something would be done about some of them.

Unfortunately a lot of what happens on board is a result of the implementation of corporate policy and that policy is driven by profit if not downright greed. This is by no means unique to NCL. The phrase “nominal fee” is much over used on board and appears to mean “overpriced”. One of my issues has been with the transparency of their pricing structure. On a scale of such things it’s somewhere next to Ryanair; headline prices, plenty of hidden but often unavoidable charges. I expect a lot of people get a big shock when they see their account at the end of the voyage. True, you have access to your account at any time but how many people avail themselves of that? The way things mount up can easily double the original cost of the cruise.

My main issue was and continued to be today, the health related restrictions imposed during our Egypt stay. They make the operation of the ostensibly self-service buffet very clumsy. I discovered that this arises from CDC (Centre for Disease Control) oversight. I really only needed to know that a US federal agency was involved to understand the depth of interference and over reaction.

However, as I said the Turkish restaurant manager and Armenian Customer Services Supervisor were charm personified and very good indeed with handling my concerns. I felt a lot better and we have not yet struck NCL from our future cruise plans.