Advertiser Disclosure: Eye of the Flyer, a division of Chatterbox Entertainment, Inc., is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers. Compensation may impact how and where card products appear on the site. This site does not include all card companies or all available card offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities. Some of the links on this page are affiliate or referral links. We may receive a commission or referral bonus for purchases or successful applications made during shopping sessions or signups initiated from clicking those links.
- Introduction: A 14 Day Atlantic Crossing on the Norwegian Escape
- Delta Air Lines Premium Select Experience (Premium Economy) – What has Changed?
- High Risk – I Flew to my 14 Day Cruise Departure City on Embarkation Day!
- Using Caesars Discount Plus Amex Offers and More to Lower the Cost of Cruising Norwegian
- Starlink Internet Performance on Norwegian Cruise Lines Escape Review
- Bidding for Haven and Suite Upgrades With Norwegian Cruise Lines is no Longer Cheap
- What is the Weather Like on Transatlantic Cruises. Will you get Seasick?
- Comparing the Norwegian NCL Vibe Beach Club to Spice H20 Experience
- The Impact of Time Change on Transatlantic Cruise Crossings – The good and the bad
- Family Balcony Cabin 15862 On Norwegian NCL Escape Review
- What to Expect from the free Main Dining on Norwegian Escape
- Comparing the old Norwegian NCL Cruise App to the New App – What has Changed
- Entertainment on the Norwegian NCL Escape – Choir of Man is a Must See
- Final Thoughts on another NCL Atlantic Crossing
I have spent a lot of time at sea cruising with Norwegian Cruise Lines and a majority of that time I have either been in a suite or The Haven. The latter is NCL’s “ship within a ship” concept where most of the suites are in a private area of the ship with elevated sun deck, restaurant and more.
Some of these sailing I have simply booked in a suite or The Haven but probably an equal number of them I have enjoyed by booking a lower class of cabin and then bidding for an upgrade.
The way this works is a number of months out from sailing date you get an e-mail with an opportunity to enter a number you will be willing to pay to move up to a much better cabin, and experience, than you currently are in. For years the bid range started small and moved to a number near the price you would have paid had you just booked a suite or The Haven to begin with. Now things have changed.
For my NCL Escape crossing I had the option to bid but the prices, even for the lowest Haven cabin, started at a whopping $700 per person and went up from there. Now for a 14 day cruise paying $100 per day for two people is not a bad deal at all for all the upgraded perks you get but to start at that level really surprised me.
I bid $850 per person for a number of different Haven cabins. Normally, at least in the past, I would get notice either within a week of sailing or even many weeks before sailing that I had cleared the upgrade. Not this time and even the day of boarding my upgrade was pending. Once onboard I found that only 3 Haven cabins were offered for upgrade and the rest had been sold.
Amazing!
It seems, just like airlines, NCL is seeing cruisers with cash and ready to spend it at near retail prices to get a luxury experience. This means, again much like airlines, the days of low cost upgrades are over and you had better be willing to pay up for a suite experience.
I have a number of NCL cruises booked over the coming years and I do not intend to bid for upgrades on most of them. Why? First off I am simply not willing to pay extravagant amounts to be in a suite. While a suite is nice it is not $200-400 better per day for my wife and I. Plus on some of the cruises I have already upgraded from an ocean view to a balcony with points and see no reason to then bid on a suite beyond that. One of the other cruises I have booked I don’t need Haven (more on that later) and another I have almost no sea days and will be getting off the ship at just about every port so again why pay for something I will not really use.
Bottom line is, at least for now, the days of cheap NCL cabin upgrades has sailed. If you want to win a bid for an upgrade you had better be ready to pay a large sum to score a win! – René
Advertiser Disclosure: Eye of the Flyer, a division of Chatterbox Entertainment, Inc., is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers. Compensation may impact how and where card products appear on the site. This site does not include all card companies or all available card offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities. Some of the links on this page are affiliate or referral links. We may receive a commission or referral bonus for purchases or successful applications made during shopping sessions or signups initiated from clicking those links.
Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
Totally agree Rene! I recently bid for an upgrade on an upcoming Oceania Cruises booking (Oceania recently got this new trick from their big brother NCL). In bidding I too noticed the starting bids were relatively high. But most importantly I looked and all of the cabin/suite grades above mine were wait-listed on their website while some of the least expensive cabin grades still showed availability. Passengers are definitely shelling out for the top cabins and suites now, we’ll see how long this can last. In the hotel world luxury resort prices have reached eye-popping levels but started a slow decline this year in most markets as demand started to soften a bit.
IMHO bidding for upgrade for your cruise is encouraging bad behavior. Cruise lines will put suite/cabins out to bid for upgrade even when ALL of the cabins are ALREADY SOLD. However, when someone have to cancel his/her cabin last minute due to emergency…etc, they will pocket the cruise fare from that original guest and re-sell you the room via so call bid. It is like selling the room twice, or selling something that don’t belong to them. I would never bid for upgrade because I don’t want to encourage such dishonest behavior! It is called GREED! If they refund the bid awarded amount back to the original guest(s) or at least part of it, then I may bid for the upgrade. But for now, I will not participate in such shady business practice.
BTW, there is no stake in the cruise lines’ part when you place a bid. If you don’t win the bid when there is no last minute cancellation or when someone bought the cabin the last minute, the cruise lines have nothing to lose. Cruise lines are not on the hook to disclose that the cabins that they put out for bid really are available to sell when they put them out for bid. Meaning that they will always be the winner and the bidders are the suckers who fall for this deceptive practice!
Instead, I always just purchase the cabin that meets my comfort level standard and move up to a better cabin when the price drops or if the price doesn’t drop then I still am in a cabin that I am comfortable with.
@Silvercruiser – As mentioned in post, all my upgrades have in the past cleared a week or many weeks out. Thus NOT a no-show cabin resold. Plus, a wise frequent floater would have travel insurance to get money back if cruise line refuses refund.