Although I have enjoyed my cruising with one cruise line, I am leery of booking my flights with that same cruise line after hearing complaints about their ticketing issues in several forums. My experience with this line's air travel booking was merely acceptable, but it was not something which made me want to use this service again - even if it saves me money.
Today, I watched two travel agents discuss NCL's flight booking program, and realized that I got lucky with my flights to/from Hawaii. If I had used NCL's hotline to get assistance when United scuttled the first leg of my flight to Honolulu, I might have missed the first day of my Hawaii cruisetour. This would have been a great disappointment, as I spent almost $9,000 to take this trip and would hate to lose a day in Hawaii due to a plane's mechanical failure. Given that NCL will not guarantee that all passengers on a single booking will fly together, and that NCL has canceled tickets on the day of the flight, I will likely never use this service for myself again.
There are some travel agents that still consider NCL's "second person flies free" part of the "free at sea" promotion, and will consider this option for their clients. So it pays to understand what one gets as part of the promotion and what one doesn't get. Although RQS and I will be taking an NCL cruise early next year, they will not be booking our flights. I do not trust them to get the best value for us when we can't even choose which airport that we fly out of. As I've mentioned, I live in Westchester county, and RQS lives in Queens. It would be a hardship for us if our flight were booked to leave from Newark instead of La Guardia or JFK. But NCL does not allow us to specify an airport if another airport is within 60 miles of where we live.
It's obvious that we'll be cruising with NCL again, as we already have two more cruises with NCL in the pipeline. But, given the horror stories being reported in the NCL Facebook forums and now by prominent YouTube.com vloggers, I will no longer be taking my chances and letting NCL book my flights.
