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.