iCruise.com review: Cruise on Norwegian Escape (04/08/2024 - 04/24/2024)

On February 3, 2024 I booked a cruise with iCruise.com on Norwegian Escape from New York City to Rome (April 8, 2024 – April 24, 2024) for myself, Peter Raben, and my wife Liliya Raben - reference number CRBK3505126. The next day, February 4, 2024, I booked the same cruise with iCruise.com for our relative Zinaida Prokopenko – reference number CRBK3505280. Our travel agent was Sophia Nicole Villena.

From the very start the way Ms. Villena handled her duties was totally unsatisfactory. She was never available on the phone. When we left voice messages, she called back sometimes, but more often she did not, and we had to talk with other agents of iCruise and explain our issues to them.

We asked Ms. Villena to make sure that our cabin and the cabin of our relative were on the same deck and not too far from each other (we are all elderly people from 75 to 78 years old). We also asked if we’ll get the promotions that were announced by NCL. She always answered: "No worry, everything will be done". She even sent an email to me with the list of promotions we will get. After the cabins were assigned, I saw that our cabin was on the 5th deck and the cabin of Ms. Prokopenko on the 14th deck. Besides, after speaking with the representative of NCL I found out that we are not getting any promotions due to the categories of our staterooms and because Ms. Villena didn't include them in the booking that she sent to NCL. After I expressed my dissatisfaction in an email to our travel agent, she stopped answering me at all.

We had to pay an extra $316.44 to change Ms. Prokopenko’s room to the 5th deck.

Before the cruise Ms. Prokopenko asked me to buy an excursion for her from port of Livorno to Florence and Piza. I bought it from iCruise for $215 (order #[protected]) for an excursion on 4/23/2024. While on board, she fell ill, had a fever and decided she can't go on this excursion which lasts 8 hours. On 04/14/2024 (nine days before the planned excursion) I called the company from the ship on the Emergency Hotline at +[protected] to cancel this excursion. I talked to an employee whose name sounded like Diamond. They told me that this excursion is not refundable, and it would be refundable only if I canceled 14 days before sailing (which means 29 days before the excursion) which sounds totally absurd.

After the cruise I talked with another representative of iCruise named Chris. He did some research and told me that this is really the policy of iCruise shore excursions department. If during the booking of this excursion I knew that it is not refundable I wouldn’t have bought it in the first place. So I lost $215.

I and my wife had over 40 cruises before, but it’s the first time we had such a terrible experience with the company from which we bought as now with iCruise.

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