Antarctica cruises are quite expensive, because it's the only way to get to the earth's uninhabited seventh continent.
The desired Antarctica cruise involves going to the "mainland" area, rather than the outlying areas. The scenery is spectacular in the mainland area, whereas in the outlying bays it is nothing special.
Here is the type of thing you would see in mainland Antarctica, which has been described by some as "Alaska on steroids":
For reasons nobody understands, NCL rerouted the ship after everyone had boarded, changing the mainland Antarctica stop to an area called Paradise Bay. They refused to give any rational explanation for this, and a look at the weather showed nothing unusual.
A woman onboard (whose accent sounds Australian) became outraged and organized a group of over 200 people to gather in the ship's main lobby area, and protest. The security officer attempted to show up to calm everyone down, but it didn't work.
She recorded various Tiktok videos, as seen below:
https://www.tiktok.com/embed/7333672444940733742
https://www.tiktok.com/embed/7334091107510308138
https://www.tiktok.com/embed/7334790902075936042
https://www.tiktok.com/embed/7335554986849406250
The only information NCL would give was that this decision was made by their head Miami office, and that a "go slow" order was given, not allowing the cruise to travel at normal speed.
When asked for a statement by the media, NCL said a bit more, but still provided little clarity:
We are committed to providing exceptional vacation experiences, both aboard our ships and by taking our guests to some of the most sought-out destinations around the world. While we try to maintain original itineraries as much as possible, at times modifications are made to optimize the itinerary or to accommodate certain circumstances. To enhance the guest experience, the ship’s current itinerary was revised to allow more time for guests to explore Stanley, Falkland Islands. As such, the cruise by Paradise Bay, Antarctica was replaced with a cruise by Admiralty Bay, Antarctica. In addition, due to a recent regulatory requirement in the area, the ship is operating at a reduced speed, also impacting its original itinerary.
I find it highly unlikely that people who paid big money to see Antarctica were clamoring to have more time in the Falkland Islands.
And while they blame the "go slow" order on a regulatory requirement, note that they said "it also impacted" the original itinerary, but stopped short of blaming that for the change. If this really had to be changed because regulatory requirements forced them to travel too slowly to get to mainland Antarctica, this would have been an easy statement to make (and prove). But they're not saying that -- just throwing that in to complicate the message.
So why would they do this?
My guess is that they noticed the ship has some kind of safety issue, which makes it unsafe for them to travel to mainland Antarctica, which often runs into huge and dangerous waves. So perhaps the ship was fit to do a revised itinerary, but could not be trusted with the rigors of a mainland Antarctica trip. It's kind of like having the 4-wheel drive break on your SUV. You can still drive it, but you can only handle paved roads and good quality dirt roads.
Why don't they just admit this? They probably are afraid to scare the passengers, and also perhaps admitting this would trigger some sort of right to refund in some countries.
These are just guesses on my part, but there's no way NCL just did this for the sake of fucking people over. There had to be a reason, and their explanation is extremely bullshitty.
Unfortunately, the cruise lines cover themselves in their passenger contract, allowing them to modify itineraries at any time for almost any reason.
If this happened to me, I would still attempt a chargeback on my credit card, alleging fraud.
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Originally Posted by Dan Druff
