You're about to discover the 10 things
that are not covered by your Norwegian Cruise Line fare.
I'm Gary Bembridge.
This is another of my cruise tips for travellers.
I'm just recently back from a cruise
on Norwegian Cruise Line.
And it really struck me, there was a whole bunch of things
that the fare didn't include.
So I thought I would share those with you right now,
so you can plan and be better informed.
So first of all let's start by looking
at what is included with your fare,
before those 10 things that are not included in the fare.
What is included in your fare?
Well, first of all of course your accommodation is included.
The great thing is you can pretty much eat 24 hours a day
on a Norwegian Cruise Line ship
because you have the main dining rooms which are normally
the Manhattan, Taste and Savour,
you also have the Garden Cafe,
the Buffet Cafe.
You then also have one of the specialty restaurants
which is normally the Local Bar and Grill,
which serves things like hotdogs, hamburgers 24 hours a day.
So you can eat pretty much all of the time.
Access to most of the facilities is included with your fare.
Also really important, of course, all the kids clubs
are included within the fare.
So that's great if you're travelling with kids.
But, you can access pretty much all of the facilities
across the ship and all of the entertainment
is normally included within the fare.
So you can go and see the big production shows,
so for example,
I was on Norwegian Encore and they had "Kinky Boots,"
but you can also see other big
West End, Broadway style shows.
So the entertainment is included
all the live music, live
music around the ship is included within the fare.
So entertainment is included.
If you're lucky enough to be travelling the Haven,
which is the premium area,
you're also going to get a whole bunch of other things.
So you're going to get a very special area,
you're going to have a special lounge,
you're going to have a butler,
whole lot of perks like that within the Haven area,
that's included within your fare.
So let's talk now about the 10 things
that are not included in your Norwegian Cruise Line fare.
The first thing that's not included in your fare
is service charges or gratuities.
So if you're cruising in something
up to a mini suite sort of level,
you're going to be paying $15 per person, per day
and that includes kids as well.
If you're staying in the more premium suites in the Haven,
you'll be paying, at the time of the recording anyway,
$18 per person, per day.
So gratuities, service charges are not included
within our fare.
You can prepay them or they will be order charged
onboard to your account.
I mentioned there was loads of things you can eat
within your fare, however there's a lot of options
that are not included within your fare
and you'll pay extra for.
So those are a whole bunch of specialty restaurants,
of which Norwegian has loads of them
and a whole lot, sort of, light dining or treat type areas.
Let's take a look at sort of the specialty restaurants
that you can expect on board your ship.
And I'll use Norwegian Encore as an example,
but these are pretty similar across all of their big ships.
So you're going to have, Onda by Scarpetta
which is for the more Italian's feel.
You've got Cagney's Steakhouse, Le Bistro, which is French,
Teppanyaki, Food Republic,
which is a really kind of new fusion fun place.
Los Lobos, Q Texas Smokehouse, Ocean Blue,
the American Diner.
So you can have up to nine specialty restaurants.
Eating at those is extra.
You can also buy packages for the specialty restaurants.
You then have a whole bunch of food and beverage places,
so one of my big favourites is,
you'll often find Starbucks on board.
You're going to find a bake shop with great cakes,
Dolce Gelato, Coco's, where you can get great milkshakes
and that kind of stuff as well.
So there's a whole bunch food and beverage places
to tempt you to spend you money.
All of that, not included within your fare.
Also very importantly, room service is not free.
You do have a charge if you order room service.
When I was on the cruise, they were charging $7.95
for every order that you were placing.
Now, if you were in the Haven or the suites
you didn't pay for that.
But room service does have
a service charge associated with it.
So the food itself is free, there is a service charge.
The third thing that is not included within your fare
is beverages, particularly alcoholic beverages,
and, sort of, premium beverages.
You can get some basic beverages, you know, basic teas,
coffees, juices, that kind of stuff
up in the Buffet Restaurant or when you're eating
in the main dining room, for example.
But, if you want to drink alcohol or lots of premium sodas,
you are going to have to pay.
Now they have their premium beverage package
which costs $99 per person, per day.
And that does give you a huge amount of choice,
but that's quite a lot of cost, and of course,
you will then have
the gratuity service charge on top of that.
What the Norwegian rules say is,
that everyone in the cabin has to buy that package.
So if there's two of you in a cabin,
you both have to buy the package.
And if you're travelling with kids in a cabin
they also have to buy the basic soda package
which is about $7.95 per person, per day,
or per kid, per day.
So that could be quite a big on cost.
Of course you can buy drinks ad hoc, but beverages,
alcoholic beverages, specialty coffees,
like I mentioned earlier, Starbucks,
not included within fare.
And that could be a lot of extra money as you've heard
from the cost of the premium package there.
The fifth area that's not included
is what I, kind of, call their flagship,
their big kind of activities and events on board.
So though you get access to lots of the facilities,
there's a whole bunch of things
that you will pay extra for if they're on board the ship.
So for example, they have Speedway,
so this is the racetracks
where you go in these great go-karts,
you'll pay 9.95 for an eight minute lap.
You can buy a unlimited day pass,
which will cost 29.95 per person,
or you can pay for a seven day cruise and unlimited pass
for just under $200.
If you want to play Laser Tag you also have to pay for that,
if that's on board the ship.
And the prices are fairly similar to using the Speedway,
so prices were 9.95 for a 10 minute session.
You could buy unlimited pass for the whole cruise
for, again, just under $200.
If the cruise ship has the Galaxy Pavilion,
so this is where you have lots of 3D and 4D rides
that you can go on.
Again you have to pay for those, you've got to buy a pass
or you pay for those individually.
They also have a Formula 1 Simulator,
and again you'll pay extra for that.
They then also have a premium area where you can go
and have a bit of peace and quite,
a bit sort of like a sanctuary,
that does have an extra charge as well.
So those big sort of flagship things that you often see
advertised on some of the big new ships,
you do have to pay extra to actually go to, and use those.
The fifth thing you have to pay for
which is pretty similar to pretty much all cruise lines
is shore excursions.
So if you want to go out on organised shore excursions
with the cruise line you will pay extra for those.
And the price of those varies dramatically from, you know,
$50, $60 for some simple tours, right up to several $100
if you're doing something much more big and ambitions.
So shore excursions oncost, and that can be
quite a big oncost if you're going on excursion
every single day, particular if you're travelling
with a family of a couple of kids,
it could be a lot of money that you need to budget for.
The sixth key cost is internet access.
So they do have two levels of internet access
if you want to be able to stream or just do simple
Wi-Fi internet stuff on board.
For unlimited access to just do normal things
like some browsing, social media, e-mail,
it differs a little bit whether you buy it in advance,
which is slightly cheaper or on board.
So you'll pay about $26 per day for that unlimited access
if you buy it in advance,
you'll pay about $30 if you buy it on the ship.
If you want to do streaming, say you want to watch
things like Netflix or Amazon Prime,
or any of those streaming services,
or you want to do things like FaceTime with home,
and know that's it's going to be very reliable,
you might want to buy the stream package.
That then, if you pre book it before you go,
that costs around about, at the time of recording,
around about $30, if you buy in advance per day,
and that's up to nearly $35 if you buy it on board.
So that could be a big on cost
depending how connected you want to be.
The next cost is exercise classes.
So of course you can use the gym for free,
but if you want to go into the classes
you'll pay extra for classes.
Now, that's pretty consistent with other cruise lines.
The next thing you'll pay for is baby sitting services.
So if you want your baby actually baby sat
while you go out in the evening,
the other thing you will pay for though,
the kids clubs are free.
If you want your kids supervised at lunch time
because they close at lunchtime for an hour,
and they close for an hour in the evenings,
if you want your kids looked after
at those particular times, where the youth club hosts
will take your kids for dinner, you do pay for that.
At the time of the recording
it's about $6 per kid, per session.
So if you want them to go at lunchtime, so for example,
if you're going out on a all day excursion
and you want your kids looked after for the whole day,
because you won't be back for lunchtime,
it's about $6 per kid for lunchtime,
and again that same thing for the hour in the evening.
So it's not a huge cost, but you will pay extra for that,
and for baby sitting.
The ninth area is around a whole bunch of services,
so obviously if you sent stuff away for the laundry
or you end up using the medical centre
you will pay extra of those.
And again that's pretty consistent with other cruise lines.
And then of course the other area is shopping.
So if you want to buy photos,
you want to use the onboard shops to buy souvenirs,
you want to buy art.
You want to the spa or salon,
or you want to go to the casino, all those things of course,
are not included within the fare.
And that's true of every single cruise line.
You don't have those thrown in the fare,
as nice as that would be.
Norwegian Cruise Lines is renowned for it's Freestyle
approach to cruising, lots of choice of things to do.
Many of those come with a price tag.
So if you go on a Norwegian Cruise bear in mind
that you might get a great deal,
but there may be a whole bunch of extra things
you need to do, or you need to plan your cruise
to basically not do any of those kind of extra things,
which will be pretty hard, because you're going to want to do
some of those without a shadow of a doubt.
Remember I have many more cruise tips
for travellers, videos.
So why don't you watch another one of those right now.