sandiego1

Several friends are on the 2024 and all have stated it’s back to normal. I think 2023 was an anomaly because of all the canceled cruises 2020-2021. People that were were on the 2020, got 125% FCC. So their 2023 was completely free. HAL doesn’t offer discounts for repeat WC. They do guarantee your same cabin if you book every year. There is a 3% discount and other perks if you book early and pay in full before June 1st. And if you are a frequent cruiser with a lot of ship days, you get perks like free laundry, half price wine packages, etc. All days count, not just WC days.

HAL. 2019 and 2023. Obvious cuts on 2023 (too many people were sailing for free - using credits from 2020 and other cancelled cruises). But we went with a group of friends we met on 2019 so we still had a great time. We are doing the Pole to Pole next year - great itinerary and lots of new ports for us. Not interested in another WC after that as there are too many repeat ports.

For our 1st WC (in 2019), our requirements were - not in priority order: - full circumnavigation. I wanted to go completely around the world, not start in 1 country and finish in another (now not as important for future long cruises) - East to West travel since it’s much easier to gain 1 hour every few days, than lose 1. Plus it’s harder on the crew. They still have the same amount of work to do, but only have 23 hrs to they lose an hr of sleep. - Few, if any, included excursions. We are very active and much younger than a typical person on a WC. We don’t want to be stuck on a bus of 30-40 people. The tour can only go as fast as the slowest person. Plus all the long waits for people after a bathroom stop or “free time” when few people show up at the meeting spot at the designated time. We wanted to be independent. - I don’t drink alcohol, coffee, or soda. Included beverages would be wasted on me and not worth the all inclusive price. DH does drink alcohol so he just pays by the drink or buys wine packages for dinner. - Ratio of port to sea days. We wanted more than 50% port days. - Price per day was a consideration, but not the driving factor. - Availability and location of a desired cabin. Since we were newbies, we didn’t have preferential allocation of cabins (HAL allows current WCers the ability to book the same cabin year after year). We were very lucky to get a cabin we liked in the desired location. - Ports - we wanted to experience as many new places as possible and not cities we had previously visited. - Didn’t want to have to dress up for dinner every night in the main dining room. Some lines require a minimum of “country club” clothing. We wanted to be able to wear nice jeans (or capris for me) at dinner most nights and get dressed up for formal nights. DH didn’t want to wear a sport coat or jacket most nights. - Size of ship - we thought ~1000 passengers was a good size. Didn’t want to go on a ship that only had 200-500. Many people are repeat customers and we didn’t want to feel left out since we didn’t know anyone. With a larger ship, we thought there was a greater chance of more newbies. Hope this helps.

HAL just announced their 2026 WC will be on the Volendam. It is currently open for prebooking for people on the current WC. They will likely open it up for bookings in May.

There are 193 countries that are members of the UN + 2 observer non-member countries. 44 of those are landlocked in addition, not every country has a port that is accessible by a larger cruise ship. I would estimate that an average world cruise could visit about 50 countries. On the HAL 2023 WC, we had ~65 ports in 128 days but several were in the same country.

Check TheInsideCabin.com or his blog on the HAL CC site. He has advice on how to submit the application.

Hope you continue to improve Diane. John is a fantastic nurse for you. I wish you were doing the P2P with us. When you are recovered fully, we’ll come up to see you. Hugs to both of u 🫶

Yes. Unless all 4 people are there simultaneously, you are a chair hog. If each person is gone for only 20 minutes at a time and the majority of the time you are all there, then no.

Looks like they upped the decor and stations since last year. Very nice. In March 2022, We were on the Zuiderdam for a short 9 day Mexico cruise and ran into Henk. I told him about a fun “Country Fair” that I had read about in a 2020 WC blog for a different cruise line. He said activities like that were easier to do on other WC ships because they were smaller, not on the Zuiderdam. So I was shocked when we had a fair on the 2023 WC! Guess he took my suggestion 😀

We loved the PG for lunch and ate there several times during the 2023 World Cruise. Dinner was good too but lunch was great. We also enjoyed Canaletto several times but the menu changed recently and I don’t like the choices.

On the Holland America CC page, there are at least 2. Also TheInsideCabin.com has several listed (including his own).

You and Judy always look like you are having the most fun! I love your spirit. I’m enjoying your blog as usual.

Pete - what app do you use to track your tour routes?

Call the WC desk and you can put a $100pp deposit on the potential Grand Asia. We did it.

Right - they didn’t announce segments while we were on the 23 WC. But there are still many cabins available. I bet they will release segments as the date gets closer. Many of the regular WC-ers said they did want to do the P2P for a variety of reasons. Too cold, too many tender ports, like the current staff/mgmt team on the typical WC… Since both the WC and P2P leave in Jan for similar long durations, I think more people will go on the WC and HAL will have to sell segments to fill the ship.

Don’t know as they don’t release the schedule more than 1-2 years out. The Pole to Pole cruise in 2025 is like a Grand SA as it circumnavigates SA and goes down the Amazon. It also heads down to Antarctica. You may be able to buy a few segments instead of the entire cruise (which includes a few stops in Northern Africa, Europe, Iceland, Greenland, Canada, and Boston).

Costco offers YF vaccines and many other travel meds through their travel doctor program. It’s not offered in every state but was a big savings for us for last year’s World Cruise. The issue with the waiver is that it’s just a piece of paper that says you are medically excused from getting the vaccines. It doesn’t save you from possibly getting YF from a mosquito as mosquitoes can’t read so they don’t know they aren’t supposed to bite you 😆

What do you mean they discontinued the other Grands? HAL had 2 Grand Africa cruises in back to back years and the Grand South America was recently completed. Friends are on the Grand Australia/New Zealand right now. There’s a rumor there will be a Grand Asia in Sep/Oct 2026. We put a deposit on it as a future cruise request. i think the only one that is missing is the Grand Med. But I believe HAL has only done that one a few times over the year (not sure how frequently or total # of times it’s been offered).

Not true. HAL doesn’t guarantee that they will hold the ship for you. There are times when the ship must leave due to tides, weather, or other factors regardless of missing tour passengers. However, in those cases HAL will organize transportation to the next port. I know of 2 recent cases where people missed the ship and had to travel to the next port. They were not happy as there was a day at sea in between the ports. They also complained that they were without their medications and change of clothing. They were also not happy with the accommodations that HAL provided for the 2 nights. So it does happen occasionally.

Thanks!! Back to packing now 🙂

Starting to pack and another question popped up. Are the cabin walls magnetic? We like to bring some hooks to be able to hang things. I prefer magnet hooks instead of Command hooks if they’ll stick to the walls.

I have done this for several world cruises. This is an acceptable strategy per my insurance broker. I purchase through another company that has participated in this forum in the past.

I suggest you just insure the deposit. As you make non refundable payments or payments towards the cruise, you can notify the insurance company and increase the insurance coverage.

On the 2023WC, we got a similar list. We were told that in addition to paying passengers, the list included people that were non paying people such as the lecturers, dancers, entertainers, arts& crafts, and others that weren’t directly employed by HAL.

@mahdnc If you don’t mind, I would like to know who you tipped in cash at the end of the cruise and how much. I don’t know how much cash to bring. Thanks in advance.