Norwegian Cruise Line NCL NCL stole $250 from us and refuses to return it. Scammers!

My husband and I put a $250 deposit down on this cruise back in July 2020 and were told that we should pay the balance by May 2022 for a September 2022 sail date. We never saw a balance or could find a way to pay it through the website and we looked everywhere on the site, so we just assumed that a payment portal would open up this month.

We have never booked a cruise this far ahead of time, so weren't sure if we were only allowed to pay within a certain amount of time before the sailing. When we logged in this past Sunday the reservation had been cancelled for non-payment. We searched through email, including spam, to see if anything had been communicated to us that we were in danger of cancellation and there was nothing.

We ended up booking the same cruise (same stateroom, even) and paying it in full as soon as we realized we had been cancelled. I then reached out to customer service to see if the original deposit could be refunded or applied as onboard credit and was told that it was forfeited and nothing can be done about it.

That doesn't seem fair given that we had no idea this was going to happen and fully intended to go on this cruise, and this leaves a really bad taste in our mouths regarding NCL. I understand that the company has specific policies but this one is completely unacceptable. They're punishing potential customers financially after their own website didn't provide the functionality that it should and there was no communication as to what was happening. 

tl;dr: NCL stole $250 from us and refuses to return it. Scammers!