NCL’s Great Cruise Comeback has lots of incentives for agents
By: Ann Ruppenstein
Norwegian Cruise Line is dubbing its return to service as “The Great Cruise Comeback.”
After 13 months without sailings, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. — which operates Norwegian Cruise Line, Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises brands – is on course to return to cruising beginning in July and August 2021 on Norwegian Joy, Jade and Gem with departures from Jamaica, Dominican Republic and Greece.
“We’re back, and we’re ready. We believe that this is not only going to be the healthiest and safest vacation experience but this is going to be the best experiential vacation experience, and that’s what I am so excited to share and have our travel partners understand, that we’re not compromising on either,” Katina Athanasiou, NCL’s chief sales officer tells Travel Courier. “It is equally important for us to deliver healthy and safe sailings, and still deliver the great cruise experience and intense port visits that we do on a regular basis.”
The itineraries allow for plenty of time to explore off the ships, as travellers are eager to immerse themselves into destinations once they are able to travel.
“We’ve thoughtfully curated these itineraries to get the most port time — a minimum of eight hours across all of them,” she says. “Our Greek Isles itinerary is seven days of sailing, six full port days, there is not one sea day, and it really allows you the experience to love travel and enjoy travel like we did pre-pandemic.”
What’s in it for advisors?
Athanasiou says NCL has a Great Cruise Comeback Giveaway for agents, as well as newly announced changes to its commission policy, which emphasize the brand’s commitment to the travel trade.
Katina Athanasiou
For every booking that our travel partners deposit on one of our three return-to-service ships that we just announced, for every deposited booking, they will enter themselves a chance to win one of 500 balcony cabins aboard any of our 2021 sail dates. This was an opportunity to thank our partners for everything that they continue to do for us, for their customers, and be able to get them on board to experience and see NCL as we’ve evolved over the last 13 months and how our product is going to come back even better.”
Also significant is that NCL changed its commission policy so that commission will be paid for fully paid bookings.
“What that means is that it applies to any form of payment so our travel partners no longer have to wait until the sail date to get paid for future cruise credit bookings. Every booking is created equally,” she says. “So many of our partners have 2022/2023 bookings on the books already, and we are thrilled to be able to say if they are paid in full today, we’re going to pay our partners today.”
The policy goes into effect on May 1 and will be retroactive to April 6, 2021.
“The last thing we want to do is not support our partners, and we know it’s not just policy and marketing and commitment, but one of those is really about revenue stream,” she says. “I’m thrilled that with this return to sail announcement we have that opportunity to provide them immediate revenue.”
New bookings are “very strong”
Since announcing its return to service plans, Athanasiou says NCL is getting up-to-date hourly reports to on how bookings are going across the three ships as well as across its fleet.
“It’s going very well. It’s very strong,” she says. “We’ve had enormous support from both our guests and our partners. People are ready, we’re ready, and it’s an exciting day.”
Coinciding with this initiative, NCL also extended its Peace of Mind policy on bookings made by April 30, for embarkation dates through Oct. 31.
“The Peace of Mind policy allows cancellation to occur up to 15 days in advance, in the event a guest decides that they may not want to travel any longer and they are able to receive that full refund in the form of future cruise credits,” she explains. “That was important for us to make sure that we had alignment on our first phase as we return to service, that we provide policies that support consumers’ confidence in us and in their decision to be able to book today.”
As operations get underway, NCL is requiring full and complete vaccinations of guests and crew.
“We’ve always said we would have a very thoughtful and methodical approach as we return to the oceans so we will start out at reduced capacities, we will have protocols when we start out to make sure that we remain the healthiest and safest vacation,” she says. “We’re still doing antigen testing, because quite frankly it’s the right thing to do. We’ve got science-backed plans and protocols guided by experts that will help the communities that we visit. So not only are we bringing 100% vaccinated guests and crew on board, but we’re also going to facilitate antigen testing at embarkation and antigen testing prior to disembarkation to help our guests, many of whom will require a negative test to get back to their home country.”
Sailing in the US and beyond
As part of its phased return to cruising, NCL will initially offer seven-day cruises to the Greek Isles on Norwegian Jade from Athens (Piraeus), Greece beginning July 25, and seven-day Caribbean itineraries originating in Montego Bay, Jamaica beginning on Aug. 7 on Norwegian Joy and from La Romana, Dominican Republic on Norwegian Gem beginning Aug. 15.
NCLH also submitted a proposal to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention outlining its plan to restart cruising from US ports starting July 4 and requesting the CDC lift the Conditional Sail Order.
“We are hopeful,” she says. “I will tell you that our announcement and our respectful request to the CDC to lift the CSO was because quite frankly we believe that we are ready and we believe that we can do it in the safest and healthiest way possible. We are hopeful that they will lift the CSO in order to allow us the opportunity to sail beginning in early July but we still do need their approval in order to do so out of the US.”
Athanasiou says NCL is also in communication with various officials in hopes of having “some semblance of an Alaska season.”
“We left our Norwegian Bliss itineraries open at this particular stage as of today,” she says. “Again, we still need clearance in order to do that, but we’re not ready to give up that fight.”
Those who are interested in learning more about NCL’s journey back to sailing can tune into a new docu-series called EMBARK – The Series, premiering April 15 at www.ncl.com/embark and on Facebook, which chronicles the brand’s comeback.
Athanasiou says there will also be more announcements coming for “Partners First,” the company’s corporate philosophy of putting its travel partners first, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this month.
“[Travel advisors] are our lifeline at Norwegian and they’ve been for 50 years and they will continue to be,” she says.
