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Have you read about Norwegian Free at Sea while researching about your cruise and you are confused? Don’t worry, we felt the same about it at the beginning. But we researched everything that you need to know about NCL Free at Sea for you!
When we did our first two cruises with NCL, their offer was labeled “Premium All Inclusive” and their motto was “Cruise like a Norwegian”. It basically meant that all drinks (up to a glass price of 15$) as well as all tips and service fees were already included in the price of our cruise.
Related: Cruise like a Norwegian: Norwegian Cruise Line Review
However, these times are over, and Norwegian now advertised their NCL “Free at Sea” Promotion. And since we are currently planning another cruise with NCL next year, we digged deep to understand everything we needed to know about Norwegian Free at Sea and how it is different from the old “Premium All Inclusive”.
And of course we are sharing our insights with you!
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What is Norwegian “Free At Sea”?
Norwegian Free At Sea is a promotional offer that NCL invented in 2019, replacing the previous “Premium All Inclusive” Offer from 2016. According to their website, it is only available for some cruises.
Basically, there are five different offers and you can choose between a number of them:
- Ultimate Beverage Package / Open Bar
- Specialty Dining Package
- Internet Package
- Shore Excursion Credit
- Friends and Family travel for free (3rd and 4th passenger)
Ultimate Beverage Package / Open Bar
This NCL Free at Sea Option is similar to the offering of the legacy “Premium All-Inclusive”. It means that all non-alcoholic and alcoholic drinks up to a glass price of 15$ are included in your cruise.
Not included are coffee specialties, water bottles and freshly squeezed juices (no idea why…).
That package a HUGE advantage and can save you a lot of money when comparing cruise prices. Norwegian offers some really nice wines for dinner and their cocktails aren’t that bad either (except for the pool bar). If you want to know more about the NCL drinks packages, Jenni from CruiseMommy was written an awesome article about that too!
We have met other cruise passengers who almost paid the same amount for their cruise as they did in the end for their drinks bill. So this package of the Norwegian Free at Sea offer is definitely high value!
Specialty Dining Package
Even though the main restaurants with their 3-course dinner are pretty amazing already (and one of the prime reasons why we love NCL), you might eventually want to visit one of Norwegians specialty dining restaurants.
We have both visited the Italian restaurant as well as the Teppanyaki while cruising the Bahamas with the Norwegian Sun and we generally enjoyed both dinners a lot.
Depending on the length of your cruise, the NCL Free at Sea Specialty Dining Package offers you up to five free specialty dinners!
- 3-4 days: 1 dinner
- 5-6 days: 2 dinners
- 7-8 days: 3 dinners
- 9-10 days: 4 dinners
- 11+ days: 5 dinners
Please be aware that not all dining venues are covered by the specialty dining package. Cabaret, for the record, and Cirque Dreams do carry an additional up-pay of 10-35$ per person.
Given that most cruises are around 7-10 days this leaves most cruise passengers with 3-4 specialty dining options, which we find to be of decent value.
Internet Package
Internet on board of cruise ships is usually a satellite Internet connection and can be RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE. Make sure to NOT USE Roaming on your phone when you are on the cruise or you might face a really really serious bill from your phone company.
Thus, an Internet Package aboard a cruise can be a lot of value if being online is important for you! Norwegian Free at Sea gives you 100 to 250 minutes of free internet onboard – no terribly a lot but enough to check emails and social media shortly.
- 3-6 days: 100 minutes
- 7+ days: 250 minutes
It’s hard to judge how valuable this Norwegian Free At Sea offer really is because it depends so much on your usage. It would not be important for us for a Europe cruise (thanks to EU Roaming), but we would probably love it on a Carribean cruise!
Shore Excursion Credit
This Norwegian Free at Sea offer is pretty easy to understand: you will get 50$ (also 50$ for European bookings) credit per harbor to spend on any booked shore excursions. Almost all excursions will be (far) more expensive, so you will likely still pay a fair additional amount of money to Norwegian to take advantage of this offer.
And you cannot carry over the shore excursion credit to the next harbor – you use it or you lose it.
We are not at all fans of the pre-planned excursion so we feel like this NCL Free At Sea offer is not worth a lot. But hey, maybe you are different!
Friends and Family travel for free
This was the Norwegian Free at Sea offer that we were most intrigued at first about when we discovered it. Having taken both Markus Grandparents and my grandmother with us on our first cruise with NCL from San Diego all the way to Santiago de Chile we were excited. But we were also suspicious as there was this little asterisk (*) behind the offer.
So here’s what this actually means: The 3rd and 4th passenger traveling IN YOUR CABIN will “only” have to pay fees and taxes for the cruise. Given how small cruise ship cabins can be, this offer is probably only interesting for families with little kids and not really meant for us.
And as “for free” still includes paying fees and taxes it is not really “for free”. When we checked some actual cruises with this promotion available (not all cruises are eligible for this Norwegian Free at Sea offer), we came to the conclusion that fees and taxes are roughly 50% of the total price.
So this is actually more a: “Two other people in your cabin only pay 50%” offer. As mentioned, this might be a great option for families but is not a real option for many other cruise passengers.
How many promotions from Norwegian Free At Sea can you actually choose?
Well, now it’s getting really interesting: The number of options that you can choose from Norwegian Free At Sea changes depending on WHEN you book and FROM WHERE you book.
When I was researching Norwegian Free At Sea, the German website gave me the option to choose two of these offerings.
And when I opened the American website via a VPN I suddenly had ALL FIVE offerings available + an additional bonus! (Free/Reduced airfare or additional excursion credit)!
Further research showed us that the American website information is actually misleading as the number of offers you can choose depends on your room. Inside rooms often only get one offer, oceanview rooms two and balconies and above four or more offers.
Further confusion causes the fact that offer 5 (friends and family) does not count towards these choices in the states and is on top (so balconies really get all five offers during certain promotions).
Two options seem to be the usual offer for European bookings though, with five for suites and above (NOT Mini Suites).
This kinda gave us a feeling of being tricked by Norwegian about their “oh-so-great-new-freedom”. But let’s first have a look at the prices before we jump to any conclusions.
How much does NCL “Free At Sea” cost?
Contrary to the old “Premium All Inclusive” offer, Norwegian “Free at Sea” is ACTUALLY NOT FREE. Yes, you read that right.
In fact, NCL “Free At Sea” is advertised as free for bookings from the US homepage while European customers have to pay for “Free At Sea”. However, they are not free for US customers either as they have to pay 20% gratuities on the theoretical retail value of their “free” packages!
We haven’t checked for other destinations but felt that it’s important to note that you may have to pay for this “free offer” as well…
Cost of Norwegian “Free At Sea” in Europe
If you are booking from Europe, “free” does not mean free for NCL apparently. You will have to pay a certain price based on the length of your cruise if booking NCL Free At Sea from Europe:
- 1 – 6 days– 49€
- 7 – 9 days – 99€
- 10 – 13 days – 149€
- 14 – 17 days – 199€
- 18+ days – 249€
We feel it’s really weird NCL called that package “Free At Sea”. However, it is at least not as misleading as the American offer:
Cost of Norwegian “Free At Sea” in the US
Should you choose the Beverage Package or the dining package for your Norwegian Free At Sea choice (which you will most certainly do) you will find out something really surprising at the end of the booking process: They do charge 20% gratuities on the theoretical value of the “free” packages (hidden in the terms and conditions on NCL’s website)!
And this is not a small price tag:
- Gratuities for Beverage package: 19.80$ per person per day (!) (retail value of beverage package: 99$ per person per day)
- Gratuities for Dining package: 8.99$ (1 dinner) to 25.80$ (5 dinners) for the whole cruise
Imagine: you are a couple in an ocean view stateroom on a 5-day cruise and you choose the beverage package and the specialty dining package. Then you will be paying 229.60$ in gratuities for your Norwegian “Free at Sea” offers – and this is in addition to your usual 15$ gratuities per person per day charge (see below!).
Even worse, these fees are really well hidden until the very last step of your selection (only when you click “Continue”)
On which cruises can you book “Free At Sea”?
According to NCL’s website, Norwegian Free at Sea is only available on selected cruises. After thorough research we came to the conclusion that is actually available for most, if not all, cruises in reality.
So at least, this offer is really available.
Big difference: Gratuities and Tips are NOT INCLUDED ANYMORE
Let’s get to another “not-so-little-new-detail” about Norwegian Free at Sea vs. the old “Premium All Inclusive”: Gratuities and Tips.
The previous “Premium All Inclusive” offer did actually include all gratuities and tips. And NCL quietly took this away from their new offering of NCL Free at Sea!
This means that now, they actually add 15$ per day per person to your room bill again! On a 7 day cruise for two people, this is an additional 210$. (Plus the possible gratuities from your “Free At Sea” selection)
It’s true that you don’t have to pay these gratuities and you can erase them from your bill at request. But then again, cruise ship workers really rely on these tips as their wages are low. Having them being covered by NCL before was really something we valued a lot (and that some other cruise ship companies are still offering…!)
Our verdict: Is “Free At Sea” an improvement or a downgrade from “Premium All-Inclusive”?
You might have already noticed it throughout this article: The new Norwegian “Free at Sea” is pretty much a rip off compared to the old “Premium All Inclusive” and a very clear downgrade.
If we compare the offerings for an exemplary 7-day cruise for two people booking from Europe (US example shown above), you now pay 210$ of gratuities + 2 x 99$ for the “Free At Sea” offer.
So if you compare a cruise during “Premium All Inclusive” with “Free At Sea” you will pay 408$ MORE for the same cruise and might only just get 250 minutes of internet or 3 specialty dining offers on top. That is poor and certainly not an improvement.
To be honest, when we found out about that, we were really, really disappointed with NCL. We loved them so much before that we had already invested into our next cruise (you can do that during your cruise and they will double the amount and give it to you as credit. It’s called “Cruise Next”.).
We would really consider booking another cruise line now because we feel this was a dishonest movement by NCL. It’s a hard thing for us to say as we really love their ships and their dining. We will go and book one more time as we already have paid for this credit. But if NCL doesn’t improve their offer, we might not book another “Cruise Next” voucher while being on the cruise.
How did you like this post about Norwegian Free at Sea?
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