Norwegian Cruise Lines Rip Off

To Whom It May Concern: (This is a copy of the letter we sent NCL regarding our experiences)

I am writing you on behalf of myself and my 3 friends who were scheduled to travel with Norwegian Cruise Lines. We were booked to travel with your ship, the Norwegian Spirit on Sunday, March 16, 2008 from New Orleans, LA. The ship was scheduled to depart at 5:30 pm. We were scheduled to arrive in the New Orleans Airport at 3:15 pm on Southwest Airlines flight number 268. These flights were booked on November 16, 2007. On February 27th, 2008 I contacted Sam�s Club at 1-800-955-7267 and arranged to receive transfer vouchers from the airport to the port and return. At this time I was required to provide all of my airline information. (Flight 114 departing from Tulsa, OK at 10:55 arriving in Houston, TX at 12:25 pm). (Flight 268 Departing Houston, TX at 2:15 pm arriving in New Orleans, MSY at 3:15). After providing this information and remaining on hold for 25 minutes while Sam�s club spoke with Norwegian Cruise Lines I received my transfer vouchers for the four above named individuals. (See attached documents).

On Sunday, March 16th, 2008 my friends and I traveled to New Orleans on the above flights. Our flights all arrived on time with the last flight into New Orleans arriving 10 minutes early around 3:05 pm. We then proceeded directly to the baggage claim area where Jerry and Fred collected the baggage and Helen and I looked for the NCL Representative. According to our transfer vouchers we were informed that we might �experience a short wait until the arrival of the next available shuttle�. At approximately 3:30 we contacted the number on our transfer voucher as no one had arrived (1-800-327-7030) and explained our situation (we do not have a record of this call). At this time we were instructed to go to an airport service person and have them page the NCL representative. We promptly went and did this. We then proceeded to wait while the NCL representative was paged on at least 3 different occasions. At approximately 3:50 and after waiting 15 more minutes and running around the baggage area and the outside waiting area inquiring about the shuttle Jerry then called the same number back again to be told that someone was on there way. Jerry then hung up and we waited another 15 minutes Jerry then called the same number back and attempted to go through the computer system to only be disconnected. He tried again as soon as that happened only to be disconnected for a second time. Finally, at approx. 4:11 Jerry made contact with a gentleman named Guillermo ID# 3745. He told Jerry he would check and see what had occurred and instructed Jerry to hold. Jerry was on the line for approximately 13 minutes. At this time my husband contacted the same number around 4:16 pm. He was on the phone for approximately 3 minutes with a lady named Harmony. She told my husband to grab a cab and get to the ship and that they would hold it. At this same time Jerry was informed to do the same thing and that the ship would be waiting. At this time we went directly to a cab and went to the ship. At approximately 4:43 Fred called the 800 number again and spoke to Harmony again. He told her we were almost at the ship and he was reassured they were holding it. We arrived at the pier around 4:46. The ship was still at the pier and we got out of our cab. We then informed Jorge Fuentes (Asst. Manager at the pier for NCL) and Rebecca Mirairdo of the situation and they tried to assist us. Jorge was unable to contact anyone on the ship to process our paperwork and get us on the ship. However Jorge did contact the person who works providing the transfers from ship to pier and was informed they had no record of us at all in the system. At this time he informed them that he saw our transfers and did not understand why there was no documentation of our arrival. At this time Jorge continued to try and contact someone who could assist us in this matter. During this time my husband, Fred then contacted NCL again and was told there was nothing they could do and it was our responsibility to get to the next port on our own. He was further informed that NCL never issues transfers for flights coming in after 1:00 and that they were sure we did not have vouchers. At 5:00 pm the ship departed from the dock. (Our travel itinerary stated the ship was to leave at 5:30 pm). (See attached). At approximately 5:08 Jerry (using my cell as his cell phone�s battery was dead) contacted NCL and spoke to Ken operator ID# 6376 and went over the situation again. At this time Jerry was informed that we should have immediately taken a taxi to the ship upon our arrival. Jerry explained we would have if we had been told, but rather we were following the information on the vouchers and given to us by NCL representatives when we called their 800 number. Jerry then informed him that the ship had also left at 5:00 pm and was then informed that they did not believe them. Jorge (NCL representative) then got on the phone and confirmed that the ship did leave at 5:00 pm. Jerry was on the phone for approximately 70 minutes trying to address this situation. He finally was told to call back in the morning. At this time Jorge assisted us in finding a hotel for the evening and getting a cab to the hotel at which time we departed for the hotel.

Monday morning at approximately 7:37 pm we started calling NCL. Attached you will find documentation of all our phone calls and attempts to resolve this matter. We were informed to try and make travel arrangements to Rotan, Honduras. Attached is a list of all the attempts we made to try and make this happen. We finally gave up at around 4:00 pm on Monday March 17th, and at that time changed our flight on Southwest and returned home. Because of the late hour arriving in Tulsa, OK we then stayed in a hotel.

As you can tell from all of the above information and the included documentation we have done everything humanly possible in order to get on this cruise. We planned this entire trip back in November and have spent thousands of dollars in order to go. I had to pay for my sister and niece to fly out from California to watch my 98 year old grandma. So there was another $1,200. As you can imagine��we are very angry, frustrated and disappointed. We feel very strongly that we have not been treated fairly and even called liars by representatives from NCL. My husband and I have traveled on several other cruise lines and have never been treated with such disrespect. We were informed that ships are never held for passengers, which we know is not the truth as we have been on ships that were held. We were given information our ship was leaving at 5:30 pm and it left at 5:00 pm. We were sold vouchers to get to the ship and then not picked up. We were then told that transfers are never sold to flights arriving after 1:00 pm. If this is true, how did we purchase transfers? If we had not been sold the transfers we would have been in a cab before 3:30 pm and to the ship before 4:00 pm. We deliberately purchased the transfers, which are more expensive than a cab, in order to assure a smooth trip to the pier. When purchasing the transfers all of our flights times were provided and yet transfers were still issued with no comments being made about them not being available for our flight times. Why would we lie about our flight times? That would have been stupid and only caused us problems. How would we have even known to lie about our flight times until trying to get transfers and being told they could not be issued after 1:00 pm? If we had been informed that NCL did not understand how we had vouchers and to go and grab a cab at that time of our first calls, we would have immediately done so. If we had grabbed a cab at the time of even our first documented call to NCL we would have been to the ship on-time. We would have never stayed at the airport and jeopardized our cruise for the cost of the voucher, but we were told to page a representative and we did. When we finally were told to grab a cab by 2 different NCL representatives (with the assurance by both that the ship would be notified to wait) we immediately did and then went straight to the pier. We were again told that the ship would wait when Fred called at approximately 4:43 to state we were stuck in traffic but should be there in a few minutes.

We were then told on numerous occasions this was our entire fault and that NCL had no responsibility. How can NCL have no responsibility when they issued us the transfers? How can NCL have no responsibility when their employees directed our every step? How can NCL have no responsibility when we are given documents stating the ship is leaving at 5:30 pm and it left at 5:00 pm? How can NCL not be responsible when they have employees giving out misinformation and calling �customer� liars? We just do not understand how this is our fault. We feel, along with our legal counsel, that NCL is 100% responsible for this entire situation and should do the �right thing� and take care of their customers. In addition, and more important to us at this time is that we feel that NCL owes each and every one of us compensation for all of the money, time and stress that we are out due to this NCL error. We realize that this is probably just some commonplace type of issue to NCL, but to the four of us who have spent months planning for this trip and thousands of dollars in order to go this is a HUGE deal!

In closing, we just want to make sure that this matter is resolved in a very expedient manner. If you have any questions regarding this matter, please feel free to contact any of us at the numbers listed below.

April 23, 2008.

We just received a reply to our letter stating that they do not issue vouchers for planes arriving after 1:00 pm. Additionally it references our plane as arriving in Miami, FL. We arrived and were scheduled to depart on our cruise from New Orleans. The letter was obviously a generic letter where they filled in the blanks. However they forgot to fill in the blanks with our information. They basically stated that we were out of luck and they had no responsiblity to compensate us.

Comment On This

Sorry about your experience, and I know you are not going to want to hear this, but, since you say you have cruised before - what on earth would make you schedule a flight to arrive at an airport at 3:15 P.M. for a cruise sailing at 5:30 P.M. I have to admit that I read your complaint in utter shock - especially considering that the odds were greater than not that your flight itself could have been delayed. While the actions of NCL are certainly reprehensible (and most people that have cruised know that you can't get a transfer voucher later than 1:00.) It seems to me that your beef is with Sam's Club, not NCL. I would recommend that you allow yourself plenty of time to board ANY cruise (they usually open them up at 11:00 - even when they say noon) and just relax and enjoy the extra few hours on the lido deck. Better yet, bring a travel bag that you carry with a bathing suit, and you will be prepared to sit poolside even before your luggage arrives. So sorry about your experience. Hope you are not soured on cruises and get a chance to enjoy it the way you intended.