Norwegian Cruise Lines New Completely ‘All Inclusive’ Cruising – Good Thing/Bad Thing – You Decide.

All Inclusive cruising has long been the main stay of the ‘premium/high end’ brands such as Silversea Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises, now for the first time one of the ‘mass market’ cruise operators has decided to do the same.

Norwegian Cruise Lines have announced every ship, every itinerary and every duration of cruise will now be all inclusive, for the first time ever in NCL’s history. This all-inclusive approach will give passengers a premium drinks package and all gratuities/ service charges included in the price of the fare.

The introduction of All Inclusive drinks packages has for a long time polarised opinion so it will be interesting to see how this move pans out for NCL.

There are those of the opinion that having your drinks/tips covered in the cruise fare makes budgeting for the cost of your holiday much easier and often means finding yourself with little or no bill at the end of the cruise.

On the other hand there are those of the opinion that the availability of unlimited alcohol does nothing more than turn the whole cruise experience into something akin to a ‘stag/hen do’.

Following a recent post on my Facebook page already opinion on the new All Inclusive cruising from NCL appears divided.

Liz commented –  “Woo hoo great news, love NCL hope they don’t change the drinks though!”

Ruth commented – “Makes you laugh, gratuities included? They’re not compulsory anyway!”

Both posts made me consider a few things, in this era of austerity and general cost cutting all round is it possible the the quality of the drinks will suffer? Also where does it leave passengers who don’t drink – inevitably prices will increase so is it a case of the sober guests subsidising the booze for the rest?

Tipping is another major issue with cruise guests, many prefer to get automatic gratuities removed in order to tip individual staff members who provide exemplary service and also because no one appears quite sure if and how these automatic gratuities are allocated among the staff.

It has been mentioned that removing the need to tip may result in standards of service dropping, I’ll leave you to make up your own mind on that one.

I suppose you can’t please all the people all the time so we’ll just have to see how it goes. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the new All Inclusive Cruising from NCL, is it fair that non-drinkers will pay the same fare as those intent on consuming as much booze as possible? Is it possible there will be more inebriated people staggering around lowering the tone?

Let me know what you think.

Bye for now.