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Guest
We did the South America cruise last March, Buenos Aires to Valparaiso Chile. Wonderful itinerary and the weather was also almost perfect. In fact this was an extraordinary cruise being at the bottom of the world.
As for the ship well that was not very extraordinary. Service in the dining room and one restaurant were sub-par. We were told by someone that when the cruise set out from Buenos Aires the previous servers went on vacation and a new group was assigned to the ship and to be patient,they are learning the ship. Six months prior we were on the NCL Jewel in the Mediterranean and the food and service was exceptional. So what happened in South America?
During the two week cruise we booked NCL's tours and they were just fabulous.
When we docked in Valparaiso we were met by Santiago Adventures and spent two days on private tours of the region. We had our own van and an English speaking guide and a very safe driver. Best tours we ever experienced.
On our day of return our flight was cancelled because of weather in Dallas. Not a problem and back to our hotel. The next day we found the NCL Rep who spoke very little English and just put her hands up and could not help us get a new flight.
We taxied into downtown Santiago and got new tickets for a flight that night on LAN.
That night we went to the airport again and LAN would not accept our tickets. Finally after two hours on the phone with NCL in Miami who were no help at all. A young lady from American said she would help us. She did and got us tickets for the next night.
So don't count on NCL for help. What we did find out was that we should have called our travel insurance hot line in the states for help. We did submit a claim and all our expenditures were reimbursed by them.
By the way the South American cruise was our sixth with NCL so we are very familiar with a few NCL ships and service.
We are now ready to book our next cruise and it looks like it will be a 15 day cruise of Northern Europe next June on the Oceania Regatta.
I posted slides shows of this extraordinary trip: http://barryrich.net/trips/tripsmap.htm then click on the South America Link.
As for the ship well that was not very extraordinary. Service in the dining room and one restaurant were sub-par. We were told by someone that when the cruise set out from Buenos Aires the previous servers went on vacation and a new group was assigned to the ship and to be patient,they are learning the ship. Six months prior we were on the NCL Jewel in the Mediterranean and the food and service was exceptional. So what happened in South America?
During the two week cruise we booked NCL's tours and they were just fabulous.
When we docked in Valparaiso we were met by Santiago Adventures and spent two days on private tours of the region. We had our own van and an English speaking guide and a very safe driver. Best tours we ever experienced.
On our day of return our flight was cancelled because of weather in Dallas. Not a problem and back to our hotel. The next day we found the NCL Rep who spoke very little English and just put her hands up and could not help us get a new flight.
We taxied into downtown Santiago and got new tickets for a flight that night on LAN.
That night we went to the airport again and LAN would not accept our tickets. Finally after two hours on the phone with NCL in Miami who were no help at all. A young lady from American said she would help us. She did and got us tickets for the next night.
So don't count on NCL for help. What we did find out was that we should have called our travel insurance hot line in the states for help. We did submit a claim and all our expenditures were reimbursed by them.
By the way the South American cruise was our sixth with NCL so we are very familiar with a few NCL ships and service.
We are now ready to book our next cruise and it looks like it will be a 15 day cruise of Northern Europe next June on the Oceania Regatta.
I posted slides shows of this extraordinary trip: http://barryrich.net/trips/tripsmap.htm then click on the South America Link.