LAFFNVEGAS

Unfortunately this placing on hold and talking to HAL Reps that appear they do not understand is kind of HAL's new way of making Travel Agents not want to call them. But the question is does this sailing still offer the Early Booking Bonus with the Elite Packages and Pre paid Gratuities? If not then HAL is correct with not being able to do anything because the current pricing is NOT the same. If the price dropped and it still is offering the same exact perks you currently have then you do qualify for the lower price. The Big key is the current pricing and package being offered has to be exactly the same as you currently have to get the lower price.

This has a lot to when you actually booked the cruise. If you booked during the early booking bonus (Have it All Plus) then NO, you absolutely cannot get any adjustment or credit. The Low Price Guarantee mentioned as perks when booking Have It All Plus is actually more of a perk for HAL because what you are booked under would no longer be available making no possible to do any price adjustments.If you booked Advantage Fares and the price of the current Advantage Fares went down after final then yes they will honor a one time adjustment which is Ship board credit that equals 50% of what the difference in price is.

Unfortunately the biggest problem with HAL right now is the HAL Call Center that has totally untrained Reps. Nor does HAL want to train them because they say "No" Very well and make it extremely frustrating for the TA. Most will not continue to fight the battle. Your TA needs to be forceful, ask to speak with a Pricing Specialist or their Lead Supervisor. Did you book with the Have It All Plus, if booked in the last year with the HIA plus it would have the Low Price Guarantee.

Your TA needs to know first what the cost was of the VH Guarantee you paid, then also need to know the cost of your Club Orange, then call HAL and explain that your original cost of the VH was higher than it currently is. A pricing specialist can in fact make the change without disturbing your Club Orange or stateroom. They would do a manual adjustment to the pricing.

The other thing is they would have charged you for it if it was actually ordered, check your credit card for charged from Holland America.

Sorry but your comparisons are way off and totally not even comparable with your inaccurate information in regards to comparing NCL Pearl to Holland America Nieuw Statendam. The NCL Pearl was built in 2006 has 93530 tons and with 1197 cabins. The Holland America Nieuw Statendam was built in 2018 and is 99.905 tons with 1339 cabins. I am taking your very first sentence to read that you believe that the Norwegian Pearl was a larger ship????. That is where you are mistaken. To also compare a drastically older ship to one of Holland America's ships is also not a fair comparison. If you were comparing HAL Noordam also built in 2006 with 84k tons then I may be interested in your comparison as long as they were with in the last 12 months. But then again it appears you have not cruise in recent years so any comparisons are really not valid. Sorry to be the Karen to be jumping all over you but many people on these board are looking for fair comparisons of recent information. I am a fan of both Holland America and Norwegian but Norwegian tends to get a bad rap here on the HAL board basically from comments as yours that are not relevant or accurate. I am a firm believer that anyone making comments on their experience that experience needed to be within the last 12 to 18 months.

Scratching my head in confusion at this comment...Just a few months ago in April we were on the NCL Joy, we were out every night listening to numerous LIVE Groups that were far more talented than anything we have seen on HAL in recent years. On HAL we might go to one of the 2 venues 2 to listen to the music, that is if we can find a table because there are only two venues. On NCL we joke that we go bar hopping after dinner, the numerous LIVE groups are spread out time wise so that you can leave one and then go to another with about 15 to 20 minutes between sets of at least 6 venues maybe more. We find ourselves staying out past midnight on NCL and we are normally back in our cabin at 9 at the latest on HAL. Our last NCL cruise the last night we were scrambling to throw clothes in our luggage to get our luggage out in the hall on time for last time they run the hallways to pick up luggage.

I actually thought it might happen during the Covid shutdown. This has been a very valid possibility before we knew what would happen with Covid. Although I do feel in the last 6 months Sales with HAL have been stronger than they were pre pandemic. I think this could be a light and the end of the tunnel for HAL but they need to Up their game to compete. But that would mean HAL needs to convince those holding the purse string to open up a bit more.

It's a no brainer until the unthinkable happens and you need to cancel. One must be pre pared to be willing to lose the deposit if you must cancel or what to make a change on you cruise pricing or category. They will allow you to move up but you cannot drop to a lower category.

Yes, it is always a refundable deposit with no perks, although often it could offer reduced deposit and possible ship board credit but not always. Although it will not be the lowest per person rate, that will be the Non-refundable deposit.

The answer to that is you were booked with a refundable deposit every time you canceled. HAL has had non refundable deposit promotions for several years well prior to covid. If you booked Have It All promo or the previous type of promotion such as HIA, they have mostly all be a refundable deposit. HAL to be competitive has been offering the non-refundable deposit so that when someone states they don't want the HIA or is looking for the lowest price that is what they offer.

The Future Cruise deposit has nothing to do with how you book and what promotion you book under and if it is a Non-refundable deposit. You could easily booked a nonrefundable deposit with your Future Cruise Deposit, cancel and lose your Future cruise deposit. Even if you book on board. One must ask questions when booking as to what they are booking. Be Glad HAL is not like Royal Caribbean if you want any kind of full Suite, Full Suites can only be Non refundable deposit with them. It is also that way with a several other cruise lines.

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Thanks for your review!! It is truly a shame to hear about the mixed drinks. Has anyone else encountered on recent HAL cruises? My last HAL cruise was on the Nieuw Statendam in December and while I mostly drank wine I did have a couple of margarita's and a Mango Margarita and Mango Daiquiri. None of the mixed drinks seemed to come from a mix nor did I see any plastic cartons. I wonder if this is something new to cut down on cost?? 7 weeks from now we will be on the Westerdam so will be able to report back on this.

There are several comments made about HAL having the best crew and while I will not disagree "Some" are very good but they are not any better than Norwegian. I personally find the crew on NCL to be far superior to any of my recent cruises on HAL and Princess and Windstar. Heaven forbid if I would mention on FB Windstar Group that their crew was the same as HAL lol. But trust me they were not better by a long shot. But with all the posts I believe we are starting to beat a dead horse. Many making their comments have NOT been on other cruise lines such as NCL, Carnival or Royal in recent years. Many here or loyal to HAL and probably has been 10+ years since they sailed some other line. Or maybe the neighbor down the street took a cruise 2 years ago on a 3 day cruise on Carnival and had a terrible time. Those of us who have cruised and experience other cruise lines in the past 6 to 12 months do have first hand experience, those commenting who have not cruised other cruise lines in the last 6 to 12 months are simply stating an opinion of hearsay. We will not change each others minds. I also do not think one can compare any three day booze cruise to a regular 7+ day cruise on HAL as well as it is not just Carnival with fights. One just needs to google Fight on Royal Caribbean ship and you get numerous Reddit and Youtube links, that is just a common thing you will find on any short booze cruise. As for service I personally have seen a decline in service from the HAL crew over the years, they too are spread much thinner than in the past which that has been discussed quite a bit here on the HAL board. How soon we forget some of these discussions. I think we will just need to agree to disagree.

To be honest I am not sure it was worth paying for Club Orange on your cruise. The Eurodam does not have a Club Orange Dining Venue, if the Signature Suites are currently all guarantee you will just get assigned what ever is becomes available, it does not matter if you have Club Orange. If there were SS staterooms available with buying the Club Orange you could have moved to any SS stateroom available to your choosing. That would have been the main advantage to getting Club Orange. Don't get me wrong there are other perks for Club Orange such as priority embarkation, priority seating in the Main Dining Room if you have Open Dining and a priority guest services line but having a Signature Suite you already get a phone Concierge for that stateroom class.

Thanks to @TableGirl and everyone else that contributed to this Live from. It was fun to follow and lots of great information.

Thanks so much Pete and Judy, I totally enjoyed following your Live From, now to hit the heat of San Diego. Although San Diego is not getting near as bad as we are here in Las Vegas. Actually your weather looks amazing right now.

Have you previously gambled/spent money in the casino on HAL? The Casino has been sending out promos like this but they do not specifically state Casino nor can it be found under your Mariner number. One has to call into HAL and state you have a Casino offer. The one I heard about recently did state something about a letter from President of Holland America. Is there any kind of promo code even in small print. It could be it is linked to casino making it impossible to be seen by anyone at HAL. The Casino is now operating totally different and regular HAL agents cannot find or nor do they know anything about these special prices. Unfortunately it is kind of like the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.

Just looked at the MRD menu for Westerdam that we will be boarding 7 weeks from today and under Desserts they list MINI "Chocodam" specially created for World Chocolate Day Ship Shape brownie, Chocolate mousse, Lindt chocolate creme.

To define the difference it use to be Pricing, Amenities, Service and Passenger to Crew ratio. But in this new world of cruising Post Covid and pricing as it currently is that has gone out the window. You can find a Royal Caribbean Cruise for 7 days to be as expensive as a Seabourn or Crystal cruise depending on the itinerary.

@BermudaBound2014 I agree with you 1000% Sadly HAL has become in the lower end of the Mass Market, only because we have so much time invested with HAL do we continue to return. It is not a bad product but it has continued to decline over the years where other cruise lines have improved their product. I think it has been closer to 2 decades since it was a premium cruise line. I can honestly say with no hesitation that Norwegian Cruise line has been our favorite cruise line for several years. I know food is subjective but we just find the food on NCL to be so much better. On HAL evens most nights we are back in our stateroom by 8 or 8:30 on NCL we frequently do not get back to our stateroom till midnight or later. We end up bar hopping to go watch the various bands and shows. We have an early dinner and often enjoy dining outside on the Waterfront. We were recently on the Joy in Bermuda and loved dining outside in the evening. We have several favorite dining venues on NCL. Yes, we do continue to return to HAL but mainly because we are 5 star over 300 days and often I can get a better price with HAL if I book more than a year out with the HIA Plus. But if pricing was exactly the same I would go with NCL. I actually consider NCL to be a more premium cruise especially when sailing the Breakaway plus Class. We have sailed Bliss numerous times as well as Encore(they are sister ships much like Nieuw Statendam and Rotterdam). After our Westerdam cruise in 7 weeks we have two cruises coming up on the NCL Bliss one will be our first Trans Atlantic with a pre 3 night Land Tour in London that is combined with the cruise. This is something HAL does not really offer with the exception of Alaska. NCL is adding these to many of their itineraries and at a price that is not crazy high. We will be seeing many sights in the city of London as well as one day trip to Dover and seeing Stonehenge. We have 3 nights at Radisson Blue. The pricing for the land portion and all transfers are coming out the same as what HAL offers in Europe for hotel only. We will most likely always return to HAL for one or two cruises a year but NCL for us is what we look at first.

I totally agree Ann we too have Fidelity, B of A Preferred Rewards is not the best card out there and with the additional fees and needing to have your money in their Merrill Investment and still pay that annual fee to me it does not make sense unless your money was already invested there. My money is spread around with large chunks in several places. For my everyday card I prefer Capital One Venture X but my other card is Citi American Executive Black Card because I do fly mostly AA and or One World Airlines. I have used the Lounge more times than I have fingers in the past year. My Venture X also gives me Lounge access where there is not an American Lounge both give me Global Entry credit so one for me and one for husband. I got the NCL card basically for statement credit we either book Haven or Club Balcony so the Upgrade does us no good. But with planning at least 2 NCL cruises a year (we also cruise other cruise lines averaging 4 per year) Husband and I both have a NCL card which works well since there is no annual fee, I pay off charges when it hits the card so statements are always zero. Combining our points we currently have 75K. I plan to wait till we have over 100K and then apply that toward statement credit. The other cruise line we frequent is Holland America, for that I buy AARP gift cards 8% savings and pay for them with the Venture X 2X points. If NCL would offer the AARP Gift cards I probably would not bother with their Visa but since there is no annual fee it still works out for a savings. It is good to leverage out what works well for you. What might work well for me may not work well for others. I envy those doing those using points for Upgrades but that just will not work for us. I will say points accumulate fast when final comes for those Haven Suites 😂

Probably I will admit I did not check Carnival, I would assume it also is happening with Seabourn and Cunard. I personally have several Norwegian cruises booked and checked each of those and Norwegian is not doing this at all. If anything the taxes went up on two of them but my reservation stayed the same they do not increase pre existing reservations of taxes do go up.

I have done some more digging on this and this weird movement and change of fees appears to be ONLY happening on Holland America and Princess. 😏 I am not seeing this reflected on Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity in comparing the major cruise lines. Most of the Luxury Cruise Lines do however include fees and taxes lumped in the full sales price well prior to the California Law change, so yes penalty is charged on the full amount after final on those.