Norwegian Cruise Line review: My eleven years old son was charged us$400 on the casino machine

On the night of August 26, we received the letter on the cruise ship surprisingly, we immediately called the customer service agent and I was told we owed over $400 on the kid’s Arcade service. My son is only 11 years old with the birthday. On that afternoon my son left the kids’ club and went to the Arcade and tapped his card multiple times during a few hours to try to earn some tickets with some gabling machines managed by Casino, which he ended up paying $400 and getting the prizes worth $4 in total.

The customer service representative on the ship was very unhelpful and said “your kid is your responsibility and nothing we could do. The only thing we could do is to submit the case #837550 for you”. We insisted on seeing the manager from Casino. The person named Norman Pwzalan - the Casino Manager told us the machine was designed for the kids to gamble and possibly win the big prize. That’s why there was no permission required from parents for the kids to play and there is no age requirement.

I was so upset with the supports I got. Followings are my serious concerns:

• The gambling machines as managed by the Casino was located in the kids’ Arcade. The legal gambling age in United States is 18+. I just couldn’t image how my 11 years old could spend this much money on Casino machines without any permission from parents. The room card used by my son for tapping on the gambling machine includes his birthday information.

The money was spent on the day from 1 to 9 PM. We didn’t receive any phone call or message on our cell phone or the stateroom phone for the notification, until the surprise letter shown up in our stateroom door at 10PM when the gambling amount was up to $400. Also, the statement on the letter was not true at all that “Unfortunately we were not able to reach you in your room xxx”.

• The customer service representative was very unhelpful. The agent told me the case #837550 was opened under our names. But until today, I haven’t received any confirmation via email. I have contacted the Norwegian customer service multiple times by phone and by chat message. The agent – Montiqua told me I should receive the information within 72 hours on September 9 as per the attached script. But until today I haven’t heard of anything from Norwegian.

I followed up again on September 16 and the agent asked me to call Norwegian instead. I called and was finally told if you haven’t received any email confirmation, it means you have to submit another case online. It is such a waste of time for everyone as involved and it is very unprofessional.

My request to ask to talk to the highest authority was ignored.