encore cruise

Hello tuggers,

We booked a cruise on Norwegian Escape February 2017. This is through an encore package purchased 2 yrs ago. It will be myself, husband and 11 yr old daughter( at time of travel). We paid port fees and taxes at time of booking. I believe food and some beverages are included. I have never cruised before. Has anyone one else booked a cruise through the encore package. are there hidden expenses i should know about.
thanks.

You will have gratuities of around $12ish pp/per day plus drinks from the bars including sodas or specialty coffees. If you book meals in the specialty restaurants onboard, those cost extra. The cabin mini bar is extra. But all meals in the main dining room, buffets, room service are included. The shows in the theatre are included, plus any lectures by people hired by the cruise line are included. If you sign up for shore excursions, those are priced individually, but frequently there is a free shuttle bus to the center of some port cities.

Jim

Thanks. I did not know about the gratuities so that is good to know. I knew specialty drinks and alcohol would be extra. We will limit those. The cost for the cruise at present is about 750 us dollars. hoping to get flights for about 400-500 per person. Will depart from Miami. Hoping to do 3 days disney after. Something to remember if you ever buy an encore package the "free cruise" can cost you about 2200 bucks! :rofl: looking forward to our cruise.

Finntastic said:

Thanks. I did not know about the gratuities so that is good to know. I knew specialty drinks and alcohol would be extra. We will limit those. The cost for the cruise at present is about 750 us dollars. hoping to get flights for about 400-500 per person. Will depart from Miami. Hoping to do 3 days disney after. Something to remember if you ever buy an encore package the "free cruise" can cost you about 2200 bucks! :rofl: looking forward to our cruise.

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It can sure add up fast. Nothing is ever free, is it? Especially when you add Disney in to the mix. As Jim indicated, most food on board is free. You can get iced tea and water for free from the beverage fountains in the buffet area and in the main dining room, but expect to pay for just about every other beverage on board. That includes soda. If you are big soda drinkers, you might want to consider a soda pass/card/program or whatever NCL calls it. This entitles you to unlimited sodas, but not usually bottled water for about $6-7 a day plus gratuities.

What ports are you visiting? I would suggest signing up for your cruises roll call over on Cruise Critic. Many cruises also have people from the cruise that have created a Facebook group just for people going on the cruise. Sign up for that too. These are good places to learn about possible shore excursions. It is often cheaper and better IMO to book excursions that are independent of the cruise line.

We have been on 11 cruises, and this fall will be 12. All of ours so far have been in the Caribbean. Though this fall we will be cruising in the Mediterranean.

What is encore cruise? $750 for 3 people is very cheap

Finntastic, not knowing your alcohol preferences, we enjoy a glass of wine in our cabin before dinner. So we bring our own onboard. We stop at a liquor store enroute to the ship. Now we are not wine snobs, so I pick up a couple of boxes of wine, and put them in the checked bags. You will be allowed (I think) 2 bottles of wine per cabin. If you prefer spirits, those should go in the checked bags, as your carryon will be scanned and the liquids will be found. Have your cabin steward empty your mini bar and put your own stuff in there. Order orange juice with room service breakfast, and if you save it, you can use that for a mixer later in the day.

Second the above advice to join your cruisecritic roll call. You can get invites to the sail away party, cruise critic functions and arrange lower cost better excursions with people you will at least digitally meet before the cruise.

Jim

lily28 said:

What is encore cruise? $750 for 3 people is very cheap

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A cruise voucher is often part of what is called an 'Encore Package'. This package is offered at the end of a sales presentation by Marriott Vacation Club to get people to come back for a second points presentation in 12-18 months in the hopes you will change your mind and buy from them the second time around.

Packages often include a stay of predetermined length (3-6 nights) at a specific (or one of several) Marriott Vacation Club properties. You will also get a block of Marriott Reward Points (often in the range of 50k to 100k) and depending on the encore package purchased - a cruise voucher for 2.

These packages are not free. You pay for them in either lump sum or interest-free monthly installments. Once paid for, you get to book your return stay. During your return stay you agree to sit through another sales presentation as a condition of getting your Marriott Reward Points (MRPs) and cruise voucher.

If you buy points at this second sales presentation, the cost of your Encore Package is applied toward your points purchase making everything described above 'free'. If you don't buy the 2nd time around, you got what you paid for - a stay, some MRPs, and a cruise voucher.

Once you have your cruise voucher, you must book through Marriott's contracted cruise agent - ICE. The value of cruise vouchers vary, but generally represent a cabin for 2 in the lowest category. You pay for upgrades to better/bigger cabins, higher decks, etc. The voucher is for base fare only. Port taxes and fees, gratuities for housekeeping (generally automatically calculated in advance, but some lines will let you adjust the amounts higher or lower based on your service experience), alcohol, specialty restaurants, shore excursions, travel to and from the port, etc. - are all on the traveler. Depending on the cruise line you are traveling on, some upgrades may be offered without cost based on your 'status' with their loyalty program.

I definitely agree with the bottomless soda package if you anticipate using more than one or two glasses a day. We have done Carnival's card and the RCL cup both. We really like RCL's model (especially with their Coke Freestyle Machines). Brilliant. Haven't tried NCL yet.

As far as whether an Encore Package (and what you get in it) is worth it, the simple answer is 'maybe'. We are currently in the middle of our first Encore Package. We have paid in full. Our return reservation for a 6 night stay has been made. We will get our 75k MRPs and cruise voucher after our presentation.

For our money, we got a nearly 1 week stay in peak season in a property we could never get into this time of year as non-owners. We probably could have rented for about the same money, but not gotten the MRPs or cruise voucher. For us, whether we buy this time around or not, it was worth it.

Your mileage may vary.

This cruise will be the final stage of our Encore package. We did I week in Mrytle Beach last April, received our MR points and next will be the cruise. Loved the week in MB and have made good use of our MR points. If I ever bought another encore package I would do so without a cruise. I am looking forward to the cruise but it would actually be cheaper to just use our timeshare next year. Fortunately family is renting our timeshare next year.

Thanks for all the advice. 2 bottles of wine would be enough for my husband and I on the cruise. Will sign up with cruise critic.

Well, we completed our return visit and had a great stay at MOW - 12th Floor Oceanfront. We went to the follow-up presentation as required and it was less painful than I thought it might be. We were done in about an hour and opted not to buy more points (for reasons discussed extensively in other threads and because we frankly have enough to do what we want at this point in our lives). We received a receipt for our Marriott Reward Points and a couple of weeks later they did appear in our Marriott Rewards account as promised. We were somewhat disappointed that we were told we would have to wait approximately 4 weeks to receive the cruise voucher, but it did finally come last week.

The good news is that there were a fair number of cruises available to book where the cruise fare on an inside cabin for 2 was covered (but you still had taxes, port charges, and the same pass through fee you get when redeeming DC points for a cruise). For most cruises, expect that total to be in the $500 range 'out of pocket' for 2 people.

The bad news is just how little the voucher covered when you proceed to upgrade to a better cabin - higher deck, ocean view, balcony, or suite. Based on comparing the cost of several itineraries booked through ICE dba Vacation Redemption Center (the contract Marriott Cruise Provider) and actual cruise line websites, we calculate the 'cash/discount' value of the certificate to be in the $500 to $700 range depending on the exact itinerary and cabin class you are trying to book.

We settled on a Southern Caribbean cruise on the new Carnival Vista next year. The voucher gave us about a $600 discount on the same itinerary and cabin had we booked through Carnival directly. For us, that equaled out to about a 10% discount overall.

Also, if you are a member of a cruise line's loyalty program be sure to ask the ICE agent (if redeeming DC points) or Vacation Redemption Center agent (if using an Encore Package Cruise Certificate) to check with the cruise line for any current promotions. You may be able to take advantage of those just as if you booked direct with the cruise line. In our case, the overall fare dropped another $200 and we received a $50 On-Board Credit because of a Past Guest Special that Carnival was offering. It took a few extra minutes on hold with ICE/VRC while they contacted the cruise line for us to check current promotions, but it was worth it.

Now I have a year to think about a slow boat to Aruba ...

Final assessment - the Encore Package was worth more to us than we paid.

We had an encore cruise certificate back in 2014-15 and recall that on some itineraries the savings for an upgraded cabin were closer to $1000 to $1200/cabin for a quad cabin, but it really depended on the sailings. Prime time sailings were discounted very little. But we even found some off peak 4 or 5 day cruises where you could get a balcony stateroom for the "free" price. So it was really ship and date dependent.

In the end, the certificate expired unused because we could not find a cruise that both we and our teenage kids wanted to do, at a time that worked with the college and high school calendars and the kids' activity commitments. It wasn't a huge deal because - as you noted, the savings aren't huge on most sailings - and we had gotten the encore cost refunded when we bought our bundle back in summer 2014. But it was sort of a bummer that we didn't get to use the certificate.

The discount for the voucher may even be less if you compared it to the same cruise purchased through Interval Travel. For our European cruise in September on the Carnival Vista, we found their rates to be about $400 cheaper than if we had purchased directly through Carnival.

dioxide45 said:

The discount for the voucher may even be less if you compared it to the same cruise purchased through Interval Travel. For our European cruise in September on the Carnival Vista, we found their rates to be about $400 cheaper than if we had purchased directly through Carnival.

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I hadn't thought of that. That's good to know. Thanks.

We do our cruise in February. When I have finished with the final payments I will have to see how much this cruise would be if booked through noreign. I feel our best value was the return week and MRP. I am still looking very forward to the cruise.

Although we ended up not using our cruise voucher, I did find that upgraded cabins were covered by the voucher if the cruise date was closer. So if you are in a position to make your cruise and travel arrangements near to your desired departure date, you can get a better deal.

The vast majority of cruise lines require that final payment be made 90 days before sailing. Shortly thereafter, they drop prices significantly. Of course, full payment is expected with the booking, and cabin selection is much less than booking early, but there are bargains, regardless of whether you use a certificate or cash.

Jim

So we did our cruise in February that was part of our encore package. I think for 3 of us we paid approximately $1300. Our daughter is 11. She lved it! Food was fabulous. I think it was my favourite part. Excursions were priced a little high but we had fun. We did 2. The weather could not have been better including a beautiful full moon! We finished off the cruise by staying at Fort Lauderdale Beach Place Towers for 1 night. I would recommend this. Overall I would say my encore package was a good deal.

Here's my Marriott Points/Destinations Club cruise deal:

Pre-cruise: Marriott Ft. Lauderdale Harbor Beach Resort and Spa - Oceanfront Balcony room - $0 / marriott rewards points
Cruise: Seven Day Cruise on RCCL Harmony of the Seas - Deck 11 - Large Balcony - paid for by renting HHI week
Post-Cruise: 3 Night Stay Cypress Harbour - paid for with free DC points from Marriott Sales tours

sparty said:

Here's my Marriott Points/Destinations Club cruise deal:

Pre-cruise: Marriott Ft. Lauderdale Harbor Beach Resort and Spa - Oceanfront Balcony room - $0 / marriott rewards points
Cruise: Seven Day Cruise on RCCL Harmony of the Seas - Deck 11 - Large Balcony - paid for by renting HHI week
Post-Cruise: 3 Night Stay Cypress Harbour - paid for with free DC points from Marriott Sales tours

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I am not sure one could give a better example of understanding the importance of leveraging all aspects of having a relationship with the Marriott brand...MR points, DC points and ownership..good job.

While initial cost and ongoing MF are important, A unit that rents well is an important attribute to consider when looking at purchasing resale weeks. It provides a true common denominator to maximize value and timeshare independence. This year we rented one of our weeks to use at an all inclusive in Punta Cana after also considering a Caribbean cruise or renting at Newport Beach.

To emphasis independence, I could have used an AC or traded for Punta Cana but you still needed to pay for the all inclusive part and had only 4 out of a 50 plus choices of resorts. I could have traded for a cruise but it would have not even covered the value of my MF. Trading to Newport would have been a wash with renting my week but I avoided the contentious exchange system by renting

Truth in advertising...while I have not had a problem with renting my HHI weeks, renting a unit is not always stress free.