Answers to my questions about the NCL?

Question

NCL- Pearl ....I would like to know about tipping, any extra fees besides what I'm paying for online. Packing, what I can bring, dinner and how all that works, policies and all that . Can someone point me to a website or if you know could you share that with me.

Answer 1

A gratuity tipping system is used and it's $10/day per person. I don't remember any extra fees, but drinks other than milk, coffee, tea, and water will cost. About 4 or 5 restaurants will cost, and pretty much anything else you want to buy on the ship. I'm assuming you're going to Alaska (that's where the Norwegian Pearl is currently), so I would pack at least two pairs of long sleeved shirts and pants. Dinner is all taken care of on the ship. There's 10 restaurants and 5 or 6 of them are free (a brochure on board the ship will tell you which ones are free and which aren't), and have very good food. Most of them are casual attire and are open around the clock. They do have traditional dining rooms as well if you want to dress up. Policies are you have to have shoes, a shirt, and pants. The nicer restaurants make you have a collared shirt in addition after 6 PM. When I went on my cruise with NCL, I was pleasantly surprised. I hope you are, too.

Answer 2

NCL charges everyone $10 per day for tips (unless you are in a suite - which is more). As to extras, that is up to you. The Pearl has many restaurants. Most are free. However, some do have a cover charge. It is your choice where you eat. Many photographs will be taken of you. It is your choice if you want to buy any of the photographs or not. The casino costs extra. Soft and hard drinks cost extra as does bottled water. Tap water, milk, tea, juice, coffee ... are all free. Shore excursions cost extra, or you can skip the tours and walk around the ports for free. Obviously things you buy in the on board store cost extra. If you go to the spa that costs extra also.

The formal nights on NCL are optional. So you don't have to pack formal clothing if you do not want to. Jeans are not allowed in the dining rooms for dinner.

For more information try these websites ...

http://www.cruisecritic.com/reviews/review.cfm?ShipID=378

http://www.ncl.com/nclweb/home.html

Answer 3

NCL typically charge another extra $10/day per adult for "service fees" that take care of the tips for the staff. They also have "upgraded" dinners, where if you want to eat at the specialty dinners, you have to pay a little extra, depending on which restaurant, it can vary from $10 per person, so pricing the items on the menu ala carte.
For more info, you can check out NCL.com and click on the Pearl for more info. Happy cruising.

Answer 4

Tipping usually has a fee per person per day and then on some cruises in order to use your ship card you have to have a major credit card or cash deposit set up on the first day of the cruise. A credit card would be alot easier as it is automatically charged to the account. Anyhow, if your service was better then what you would expect or whatever you should tip more, as they dont make a whole lot of money and whatever they do goes to their families back home. As for the extra fees you may want to tip your tour guides and everything while you are in port, and then the porters and stuff when you get onto the ship. So bring lots of $1, $5, and $10, billls in American Currency. Also, you may need to tip room service if you are using that. I think that is it when it comes to money and tipping and fees. You may also want to check out cruisecritic.com for some other information.

Packing. Singe biggest mistake people make is to overpack. During the day on the ship you can wear whatever you want depending on the weather. So if you are going to the caribbean you might want to bring t shirts and shorts, flip flops, and tank tops. Stuff that you would use regularly. For dinner no shorts or jeans are permitted in the dining room after 6 pm. For women, casual night is a pair of khakis and a polo shirt, a nice skirt and blouse, slacks and a blouse, something casual. Maybe even a nice summer dress. Then from semi formal night, a nice pant suit, or skirt suit. Something formal but not casual. Then for formal night a cocktail dress or something would appropriate and or a formal gown, depending on your preference. Then make sure you dont overpack on shoes, and then theirs jewelry. Side note: No one is going to care if you wear the same slacks or skirt with a different blouse on the cruise. It saves you room in your luggage so you have more room for other clothing and personal items also for souvenirs. It really helps. So think about that and maybe if you are taking shorts or tank tops for daytime attire you can wear the same thing twice with different shorts or a different shirt, and just accesorize differently. So hopefully this helps. Bon Voyage!!

Answer 5

I went on NCL Spirit in June so i assume its the same....they automatically charge you 10$ a day no matter what. You can raise or lower this at yur discretion. Since we were served at lunch and dinner by someone new every night and day we did not tip our wait staff (except for a few who were great - up to us though). The only people we tipped were our room stewards because they were the oens taking care of us consistently throughout the week.

Answer 6

The gratuities for your cruise are pretty standard industry-wide and the recommended gratuities are typically posted on line in the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section of the cruisse line's web site. http://www.ncl.com/nclweb/cruiser/cmsPages.html?pageId=FAQ#tipping

The short answer is they add $10 a day per person to your cruise account to cover gratuities for your cabin attendant, waiter, ***'t waiter, and MatreD. Each time you order a drink or soft drink there will be a gratuity for it added to the check that you sign. You can give more if you want.

You can bring whatever the airlines will allow you to check, usually two pieces of luggae for each person, plus carry-ons. The dress on ship is casual all day until 6:00PM. So take swim wear, shorts, sandals, beach shoes, your snorkel equipment if you have it, sun glasses and sun screen, lotions, a cap or big hat for the sun, a book if you are a reader, your music player, sneakers and clothes to workout in if you like to use the gym, your camera, and other personal toiletries.

After 6:00 PM they request that you wear "sports casual" attire. That's attire that you would expect a person to wear in a business office, shirt with a collar, slacks, skirt, blouse, etc. You can still wear shorts and swim wear in the pools and spas but not in public areas like dining rooms and restaurants, show rooms, bars, casino, etc.

Most 7-day cruises have two formal nights when you can wear your best stuff and get pictures taken, and maybe meet the ship’s Captain. The formal nights are REQUESTED not required attire. But most people do dress up in a tux for men and a long dress (any color) for women. Some men just wear a suit and tie and some women wear a nice dress but not a gown. You will not be denied access to the dining room or anything else if you choose not to dress up. (we usually take off the formal stuff after dinner and pictures anyway).

Its best to pack using soft-sided luggage because with space limited in your cabin it fits under the beds better if its not hard sided luggage. Take a small carry-on bag for the last night of the cruise. On the last evening you will be required to put your luggage outside your cabin by about 2:00 AM so that they can start taking it down to the lower deck for offloading the next morning. So you will need a small bag for your toiletries and and your clothes that you sleep in.

Since you are going on an NCL ship you will have "freestyle cruising" for dinner. Freestyle Cruising means that you do not have to specify a dining option when you book your cruise and thus don't have a table and waiter assigned to you. "FREESTYLE" means you can go to dinner in the main dining room, or any other alternative restaurant, any time of the evening after 6:00 PM.. But you will have to reserve a time in the alternate restaurants. It also means that you don't have to "dress up" for dinner, but just go "sports casual".

The option to traditional dining on NCL is their optional dining restaurants. However, these dining options can cost $10 to $20 a person for dinner each night. The optional restaurants are very nice, including French, Chinese/Sushi, Tex-Mex, Italian, and steak house restaurants. We always skipped the optional restaurants and just got to the main dining early. That worked fine, except on "at sea" days when everyone wanted to go eat early. We later found that we could reserve a time in the main dining room, but we still got a different table and waiter for dinner each night

Answer 7

I have to say i have never been on the Pearl but usually, when i'm stuck for answers like this, i visit www.insidecruise.co.uk. There are lots of cruise lovers exchanging information - someone is bound to be able to help you :-)

Answer 8

Check out their website this may be able to help you http://www.ncl.com/nclweb/fleet/shipInformation.html?shipCode=PEARL . I'm trying to found out some of the same information. So I know what your going through......But this helped me a lot. Good Luck!