I will start off by saying that we had a very nice cruise on the Jade departing Venice on May 31. Couple of glitches on embarkation day and a major glitch on the last full day of the cruise.
My husband and I enjoyed the UDP when we sailed on the Spirit, so I signed us up for it again a few days after booking our sailing. Between the time I booked and final payment the cruise price was lowered a couple of times and apparently some other perks added (OBC that I knew about). So I called NCL to get those adjustments. I also called to reserve a post cruise hotel. I reserved and paid for a shore excursion online. When the proper time came I made dinner reservations online at the specialty restaurants that we wished to dine at. I had trouble booking Moderno for one of the nights so called NCL for help. They could not book it either so I had them replace it with another. No big deal. We could get into Moderno on the first night of the cruise. So, most of the dinner reservations I made online. When I placed them in the shopping cart and then reserved them it came back with zero dollars owed (but maybe I misunderstood that).
Imagine my surprise when a few weeks later I was going through my credit card bill and saw that NCL had refunded the exact amount for two UDPs to my card. I thought that some mistake had been made and remember being worried that perhaps the UDP would no longer be available. Again a call to NCL. The representative looked at my records and said that she saw the refund. I said that I really wanted that package and could she please put it back on. She told me that I still had the UDP but that I had gotten a promotion for free UDPs! What?! Wow! I told her that I had not noticed that in my account or reservations and she said that she would send me the document that showed the promo code. OK!
Now, I have to admitt that I wanted that email to say in very large letters, " NCL has given you free UDPs!" Instead it was a confirmation of my cruise and the price I had paid for the cruise, the hotel, the shore excursion etc. In the top corner were three promotion codes where before there had only been two. The third one was news to me. It said dindis. Looks like dinner discount to me! :)
Jump to embarkation day. We had finally gotten on board. My cruise card did not have my name clearly printed on it. Part of my first name, part of my last. No worries I was told. It is the magnetic strip that counts. Try telling that to the security person who compared my cruise card to my passport! Back to the counter I went.
Once on board and to lunch, etc. we got back to the cabin to find a voice mail from our conceirge. Too bad. Moderno is closed tonight so you won't be able to dine there. Guess not! We asked him to switch Moderno to the next night and put us in Le Bistro instead. 7:30 reservations became 8:15 after a five minute promised call back became half an hour and when we called him he still hadn't arranged it. Oh well.
At some point I realized that our cruise cards did not have the UDP stickers on them like we had on the Spirit. I mentioned this to the Concierge and he said not to worry that they would fix that when we went to dinner. I didn't like that answer, so off we went to the front desk. The nice young man behind the desk looked on his computer and then went into the back. He was gone for about 10 minutes. Red flags waving! But back he came, put stickers on our cards and gave us a little receipt for each night of dining with the name of the restaurant, the time and Pre Paid typed on it. Life was good again!
We enjoyed the cruise. Had some nice dinners in the specialty restaurants. Mid cruise my husband asked to see our bill so far and all was well.
Well, the last day of the cruise came. We were on a shore excursion and when we came back we had a voice mail. What, the restaurant of our choice was closed? No, it was the maitre'd of Le Bistro asking us to give him a call. He wanted to know if we had the UDP. I answered in the affirmative but the red flags had started waving. We got ready for dinner and stopped at the front desk. We asked to see our bill. Of course you know what it had on it. Cover charges for all the restaurants. We explained our situation and she went in the back and came back and tried going over the bill with us again. She said the records indicated we had not paid for UDPs. By then we had been there 30 minutes and we explained that we were now 10 minutes late for our dinner reservation. She said to go, and relax and have a nice dinner and when we came back she was sure everything would have been worked out. Off we went.
In the middle of dinner we were approached by an assistant financial officer who told us that he had no choice but to charge us for our dinners. I told him that I had charged the UDPs initially. He suggested that perhaps our credit card had been rejected! After some discussion he agreed that we could bring him some documentation after our now spoiled dinner. We finished in record time (we still had to pack too! lol) and went to the internet cafe to print out the documents showing the promo code and the paper that said something about our dinner reservations under the UDP. Of course we never saw that Officer again or the first woman who helped us earlier in the evening. They photocopied the documents and said they would send them to Miami. They would call us within 30 minutes to update us with what was going on. We went up to pack and at 10 PM still had heard nothing. Back to the front desk we went. New people, rehashing explainations. They no longer had our paper work. No surprise. My husband went back up to get our copies. They had emails from the office in Miami saying that I had called NCL and canceled my reservation because I had made "other NCL plans."
A few times I asked what does the promo code dindis mean? I didn't get, "I don't know, let me call and find out." I got no response at all. Finally we obviously weren't going away and a more senior finance person showed up after we sat and waited in the lobby awhile. She listened to the story, looked at our papers. Told us she believed us but was not authorized to give out free meals. She called Miami while we were standing there. She became authorized to remove the meal charges.
So lessons learned? Of course. I should have reconfirmed the UDPs again. I will document every call made, every person talked to on the phone. So nothing is truly free. Our last night on board the Jade was completely ruined. If it sounds too good to be true.......
Any comments about this are welcome. Has anyone every gotten a free UDP? I thought I had read (now that I am home) that it has been a promotion in the past for certain ships.