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 Stranded on an Island for Hours by NCL
Posted Mon November 2, 2009 12:00 pm, by Scott K. written to Norwegian Cruise Lines
Write a Letter to this Company
My family and I attended a cruise from October 24th to October 31st, 2009 on the NCL Pearl. It was our first time sailing with NCL and we really enjoyed ourselves. The food was great, service was amazing and the shows were mostly really good! We just had 2 issues with the cruise that were kind of big deals for us! The first issue was our first port stop, which was Samana(not sure of spelling). We signed up for the Sea Lion excursion and for our family of 4 it was over $500. As you know the excursion isn't on the main island, so the entire excursion was around 30-45 minutes, they allowed no picture taking with our personal camera's, we had to keep our valuables in UNLOCKED lockers and NCL kept us on the island until almost 2pm with NO way to get back to the ship! I think to pay that much money for such a short excursion and can't even take a picture is crazy. The worst part was that the excursion started around 10:30am and we were literally stranded on an island for hours and hours, thus making it also impossible to even visit the main port of call, so we missed out on an etire port of call!! The 2nd issue was with the entertainment, more specifically the dance shows, they performed multiple times and consisted of a bunch of ladies dancing and a few men. We were told by Julie the first night of the cruise that all the shows in the stardust theatre were FAMILY FRIENDLY! We took our girls to the first dancing show and were appalled. Our girls are ages 6 & 7 and if we were not in the middle of a row, would have walked out. At the very least it was pg-13, yet that's being generous. I was and am, very upset my daughters had to watch it. A few nights later they had another show and because of what Julie had said, we thought we would give it another shot and this time, it was more seductive and provactive then the first. Women were hardly covered, kissing and just very adult dancing overall, nothing for anyone under 13 to be watching and I even think 13 is young for most of that!!
I would really like NCL to look into the sea lion excursion, how it's run, the value of it, and they need to have some way for NCL guests to get back on the ship. I would like a generous portion of our on-board account balance refunded to our credit card for the excursion itself and more importantly for basically leaving us on an island for hours and hours and causing us to miss an entire port of call that we had paid good money to see !! I also think if you are going to classify ALL those shows as family friendly you need to seriously evaluate the content of them !! (Latitudes # 212658691)
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by PepperElf Posted Tue November 3, 2009 @ 12:21 PM
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just curious.
i looked up "samana norwegian" at google and found some links with
pictures.
if that's the same place you visited... it's really pretty.
though personally i wouldn't want to get too close to a sea lion
myself. i've seen them on the pier in san fran and... well i'd hate
to get close enough for one to sit on me. =p
hmmm i see there's more description on the dancing... makes me wonder
about the costumes. i use to live in hawaii (navy ship) and saw
polynesian dancing with the women wearing bikini tops and grass
skirts... anything like that?
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by KGBags Posted Mon November 2, 2009 @ 9:12 PM
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I've made this same mistake when I was a first time cruiser, except it
was for a dolphin encounter. I paid big bucks for a 4 hour excursion
when in fine print it clearly said "time spent with dolphins is
approximately 30 minutes". My excursion was very popular and they
just couldn't throw all 100 people in the water at once with 3
animals. So we all had to wait our turn, buy their photos (on the
ship, no less!), and spend a relaxing hour in line and two hours in
gift shops. Touching the dolphins WAS cool though. I think you'll
find a similar experience on any cruise ship.
In the future, I suggest looking outside the cruise company for
excursions such as the one you booked. There are websites dedicated
to cruises and message boards and reviews for excursions not booked
with the cruise company. You can generally find a smaller, reliable
excursion for less money, and you might have more control over the
time spent. I've done several on different islands and had great
success.
As for the shows, everyone's thoughts on family appropriateness is
different, as many other posters have said. Bottom line is that you
absolutely have the right to leave if you feel it is in poor taste,
regardless of where you are sitting. Anyone who was sitting in that
row who wanted to complain about you getting up and leaving should
have been told to mind their own business.
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by Lisa H. Posted Mon November 2, 2009 @ 5:42 PM
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I looked up the excursion on the NCL website, and it does say that the
total time is about 3.5 hours, which matches your 10:30 - 2:00 times.
It also says that the time with the Sea Lions is about 30 minutes, the
rest is described as "at leisure on the beautiful island of Cayo
Levantado". I didn't see any mention of not being able to use your
own cameras, that should have been there.
It's hard to know with the shows, what people consider "family
friendly" is so subjective.
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no photos
by PepperElf Mon November 2, 2009 @ 11:13 PM
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by Richard S. Posted Mon November 2, 2009 @ 4:36 PM
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In the excursion brochure provided by NCL. Did they say how long the
Sea Lion excursion was supposed to last? Did they also mention
anything about picture taking in the brochure? You don't mention how
long you were off the ship for the sea lion excursion and how long the
ship was in that particular port.
I have been on a cruise before and I know some of the excursions that
have lined up have gone 8-9 hours itself when the ship is only in port
10 hours.
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by PepperElf Posted Mon November 2, 2009 @ 4:04 PM
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i'm curious... what was shown in the dancing show that was offensive?
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