Norwegian Escape Feb 18th - Good time had by all

Could you give any hint of what it cost you to upgrade to the Haven (% increase perhaps?)

Hi Everyone! The bidding program is new. You will get an email from NCL before your cruise date that offers you the option to bid PER CATEGORY OF CABIN. They will give you a starting bid and you can scale it from there. You can bid on as many different categories of cabin as you want. As you scale up your bid you will see a little meter that moves from "poor" to "excellent" - which is saying that your bid has a poor, fair, good, etc chance of being accepted BASED ON PAST SUCCESSFUL BIDS by other cruisers. I upgraded from a B9 (mid ship balcony) to a Spa Haven Suite (H9). My category of bid was on the line between "fair" and "good". You commit to the price for the first two people in the cabin. If you have 4 people in the cabin (you and your kids for instance) then the upgraded cost is only for the first two - not all four of you. If you bump up to a category that would have had all of the Free At Sea stuff ... you only still get whatever you originally booked with. So we kept our Beverage and Dining packages but did not get the other packages even though we were now in Haven and had we booked Haven from the get go we would have gotten all of them. Hope that helps! Oh - we got notified on the Wednesday before our Saturday cruise that our bid was accepted. 

kj1213 - NCL launched a new program where you can "bid" on upgrades at least two cabin categories higher than what you booked. You basically commit to an extra amount per person (for first two people in cabin) that you would be willing to spend to upgrade - and you can select the cabin categories you would be willing to upgrade to. We were notified three days before departure that my bid was accepted and it upgraded us to a Haven Spa Suite. And it was indeed SAH-WEET!! (sorry - couldn't resist). It did NOT change the "Free at Sea" perks though - it stayed with what was based on our originally booked cabin. 

Not blaming NCL for Customs at all ... simply made a recommendation for how to handle the departing PORT activities and lines - not the actual Customs clearance itself.