courticeguy

Thank you all for your encouragement, much appreciated. Other than 2 cruises with Carnival and one with Norwegian our to go cruiseline has been HAL and although we're getting past our best before date are looking forward to having more entertainment options on Princess. 

This will be our first cruise post covid and have booked Alaska on the Crown. This is also our first time with Princess and reading reviews of this ship doesn't inspire much confidence. The recurring theme of lukewarm food served in the MDR'S and buffet is particularly disconcerting along with long wait and service times. 

Please allay our fears.

Derek and Louise

I'm an early riser, DW is not. Can I take both medalians to the international Cafe and bring back 2 coffees to the cabin?

5 years ago I had a similar booking dilemma where the cabin I wanted was listed as unavailable on our B to B yet was available for both individual segments. On posting here I was advised by a member to have my TA (big box store) to call a supervisor, in this case at HAL, and request that they "move inventory" to facilitate my booking. Back then the big box had an option to search for a specific cabin regardless of how it showed on the availability map. Unfortunately that is now not available but of course you can always get the agent to check for you.

On 6/4/2020 at 6:24 PM, frugaltravel said:

No surprise.

 

NEW: Cruise with Confidence Cancellation Policy Extended

Effective immediately, our existing Cruise with Confidence policies are now extended to all cruises departing April 30, 2021 or earlier. Here are the details:

• Guests can cancel up to 30 days before their sailing date and receive a Future Cruise Credit (FCC) for any cancellation fees and a refund of additional funds received to the original payment method.
• Based on demand from your clients to delay making their Final Payment, we will continue with our policy to allow Final Payment 60 days prior to departure.
• No fees assessed prior to 60 days, and all deposits are refundable.
• This change applies to new and existing bookings made by the Final Payment date (60 days prior to departure) on cruises and cruisetours.
• Beginning with cruises departing May 1st, 2021 the final payment date returns to our published policy.

I have a cruise booked mid March 2021 out of Sydney. My issue is that restrictions in Australia/NZ could be lifted with the cruise sailing as scheduled, but entry to the country from North America restricted. At least this gives me a little wiggle room before final payment.

Thanks for your heads up ceilidh1. I quickly booked at the old price for a Australia/NZ Cruise next March in Canadian  and today the price was up $550 cad. Hopefully restrictions will have been relaxed by the time final payment is due at the end of November. 

10 minutes ago, SoBaycruiser said:

 

Derek,

 

Someone on a current cruise was just in Kushiro last week and answered that in our roll call:

 

Thanks, got back from the cruise a couple of weeks ago and found nothing at the dock other than transportation into town.

Thank you for your replies.

We will be visiting these ports at the end of the month on the Westerdam and would be interested to know if there are an abundance of or any local tour operators at the dock.

Thanks, Derek

1 hour ago, aa7yy said:

Do you remember when it was 2 for 1 ?  Maybe two years ago.

About a year ago, buy 1 second for a $1

Just now, buy 1, second $2

 

I see $2.00  off each drink coming.

 

This last cruise they moved Happy Hour from the Lido bars down to the Ocean Bar and Billboard at around half way. The good news is  it was poring down rain. The bad days is it would of been nice to be outside on the warm sunny crossing.

My favourite place for happy hour is the crows nest. Sadly it seems that this will be the last ship before refurbishment that will have that venue

59 minutes ago, Peggy Tuten said:

Would it be really tacky then to ask for one drink with no ice that I could take back to my cabin and consume the next day - in my cabin?  I can't handle more than one and my husband only drinks non alcoholic beer.

Absolutely nothing is tacky, they will do whatever you wish. People walk around with drinks all the time so you can carry one back from your cabin at lunch if you wish.

If you drink beer, purchase more at happy hour prices and take them to your cabin. They will give them to you unopened.

It all comes down to as what is included in the base fare. The travel industry as a whole is going to a more a la carte model, it probably won't be too long before food is not included in the cruise fare.

Thanks for the replies, especially the information of HAL giving generous compensation. Plan B in this scenario would be to take a subsidized future cruise and keep my itinerary by doing a land tour of NZ.

Apart from unscheduled maintenance issues has anyone had a cruise cancelled on short notice? We are 8 months out on a cruise from Auckland and am combining it with a stay in Saigon and pre and post cruise stays in Auckland and Sydney. My issue is getting reasonable one way flights to and from these cities in business or premium economy and would go ahead and book if i felt HAL wasn't going to pull the rug out of my plans. For example I just missed out on a great business class fare from SGN to AUK which has now jumped 50% but had no refunds in case of cancellation. And no...... I don't support the insurance business unless for catastrophic reasons.

Thank you.

I totally agree that they should supply a statement at the end of the cruise just as you would expect a final bill from a hotel. I use the navigator app and check daily to make sure there have been no erroneous charges, just as I do with online banking to check my credit card expenses. Although the app isn't for everyone, in my opinion it's a far better system than the old days of trying to reconcile a whole bunch of paper chits with the bill at the end of the cruise.

You can use a site like http://faxzero.com . Works great and you comply with the CCL (and HAL) requirement for fax or ground mail.

Thank you.

I keep seeing that you should fax your information. I retired my fax machine 10 years ago and use email attachments instead. Does anyone know if HAL will accept this format?

I just booked with ParknGo. They appear to have a secure facility based on their website.

The Carnival Corporation "Shareholder Benefit" (copy attached for your convenience) clearly provides that "anyone cruising on a reduced-rate or complimentary basis are excluded from this offer." I believe your "casino rate" qualifies as a "reduced-rate" fare and thus IMO the shareholder benefit was correctly denied to you.

At what point is the fare considered to be a reduced rate I wonder as I doubt anyone actually pays the listed full fare.

Maybe I'm missing something but, when booking and subsequently checking prices from time to time, there is no difference in price by checking the senior box or past mariner number. Just when are these relevant?

Success!! Thank you all so much. I requested my TA to ask them to move inventory and after being on hold for 1/2 hr they got it done.

The main reason I didn't want to book the individual segments, other than the higher cost, was that I assumed we would have to go through the embarkation process again at the turnaround and possibly have to totally vacate the cabin.

I'm looking at booking a 21 day cruise that is a combination of a 10 day and 11 day segment. My preferred cabin is available online on both segments but not on the 21 day listing. I had my TA call HAL but they were also told they could not book it. Does anyone know why they market this way?

I donot remember about the ATM. We took a cab and asked the driver to bring us to an ATM first. That was no problem.

Thanks, good advise for any port.

Does anyone know if there are any ATM's in the port area or if taxi's take US dollars?