Hollywood KS VIP Group

Like other cruise lines, NCL offers free meals in their main dining room and buffet. NCL also has other free dining options on the Getaway, the ship sailing out of NOLA. There’s an Irish pub, a snack bar, and a noodle bar. Info on the free dining: https://www.ncl.com/cruise-ship/getaway/whats-on-board/dining

They also offer specialty dining where you either pay a cover charge, or pay a la carte for items. The Getaway is a big ship with several venues. More info here: https://www.ncl.com/cruise-ship/getaway/whats-on-board/specialty-dining

Your cruise booking includes what NCL calls “Free at Sea” perks. There are 4 main “Free” things you receive. It is important to note that while the perks are free, you have to pay gratuities for both dining and beverage packages. The gratuities are charged when you book the cruise.

• Specialty Dining – For a 7-day cruise, depending on the category of stateroom you book, you will receive either one or two free meals per person at a specialty dining venue. If you book a studio (solo) cabin, inside, or oceanview stateroom, you get one free specialty restaurant meal per person. The gratuity for this would be $11.80/person. If you book a balcony or higher stateroom, you get 2 specialty meals per person, with a gratuity of $19.80/person.

• Unlimited Open Bar – Probable the most important perk is the beverage package. Pretty much everything $15/drink or less is covered. There are some liquors and many wines that are not covered. You also get free soft drinks and juices. This does not cover specialty Starbucks coffees and such, but you can purchase an upgrade that allows you to drink anything they have on board. Like the dining package, you will pay a gratuity of 20% of the package cost, currently about $22/person/day. This gratuity will also be charged when you book.
• Shore Excursion Discount – For each port visited, you get a $50/stateroom discount for excursions booked through the ship. For Robin and I, this one is pretty much useless. We don’t book anything through the ship. When we go/see/do, we typically do it on our own, or in our own group. But, if you want to use it, it’s there.
• Free WIFI – Cruise ship WIFI typically sucks, but I recently read that NCL is upgrading ships to use Elon’s Starlink service. This should provide a better experience. Anyway, your booking includes 150 minutes of free access per person on one device per person. You can purchase additional minutes, or even an unlimited package once on board.

Gratuities (other than the ones related to specialty dining and beverage packages) are not prepaid when you book the cruise. Back in the day, you would hand out envelopes of cash to your room steward, the dining room staff, etc.

NCL has standardized the whole gratuity thing and made it automatic. This way, you can save your cash for gambling in the casino, as you should. Each person is charged $20 per day on your onboard account. This money is distributed to staff that do receive tips from the packages. This includes your room steward, buffet staff, free food venue staff, laundry service, etc.

Other charges you will see in your onboard account at the end of the cruise will be anything you buy in the duty free shops, any upgrades or additions to specialty meals, and state taxes on alcohol consumed before we get out to sea. The drink taxes aren’t much, but if we have a really good sailaway party before the ship even leaves, there will be a few bucks to pay!