Book Seven Stars cruise now and it will be (almost) completely free

One annoying thing about the Seven Stars "free" NCL cruise is their requirement for you to pay "port charges, fees, and taxes".

The "fees" part is most obnoxious because that's simply money going into NCL's pocket. At least the port charges and taxes are just being forwarded to the localities where the ship stops.

Anyway, they have a promotion right now where SOME cruises they are covering those charges. You need to look for a "tax free" indicator on the booking (just go through the ncl.com website, pretend you want to book and pay normally, and you will see pretty quickly if the "tax free" thing is a promotion for it.)

Taking one of these cruises will allow you to have a truly free cruise, aside from what they call "gratuities" ($13.50/day per person). You can actually get the gratuities back if you want by filling out a form and mailing it in after the cruise.

Why would anyone be such a jerk to claim back gratuities for the crew? Because the "gratuities" part is all BS. NCL pays the crew a flat rate, and the "gratuities" are just reimbursing NCL. Therefore, asking for the gratuities back does not affect crew pay.

However, I never do this because I'm already no-playing NCL regarding the casino (because it's terrible), so I don't want to be too much of a freeloader and get some kind of black mark on my account there. So I just pay the phony gratuities.

Some of these cruises even have the tax/fees/charges paid for you AND you also get 2 free perks like a few specialty meals and 240 minutes of internet.

This is definitely a good promotion.

I just wish they would bring back the "free upgrade" promotion, which I used to upgrade my oceanview room to a balcony on my 2014 Alaska cruise -- which was a HUGE upgrade. I wish they just gave us a balcony on the Alaska cruises, because an oceanview room really sucks, especially when you want to see glaciers. The upgrade promotion hasn't been seen since 2014, though.

Good and bad news:

Good news is that the promo has been extended.

Bad news is that the promo was never as good as I thought. Turns out you still pay a $20-per-person-per-day "admin fee" on each booking.

So a 7-day cruise for two would still cost you $280.

Still an excellent deal, especially because right now you also get 2 other promos for stuff onboard (such as specialty meals) that you choose with it, which together are worth about $200. Plus you also get $100 on board credit, which can be spent onboard or turned into cash at a 97% rate.

BUMP

The "tax free" promotion has been done for awhile, but they have a fairly good (though not quite as much) promotion going on right now.

You will get a $200 on board credit plus 2 promo items (specialty meals, internet, etc).

So basically the "tax free" deal above is being replaced by an additional $100 of onboard credit (total, NOT per passenger).

The "tax free" deal was basically saving two passengers about $250-$300, so this is replacing that savings with $100.

Not as good, but still better than the "usual" promotion which has $100 on board credit and the 2 promos, with nothing else.