sandiego1

Pete - do you condense your photos before posting them? What tool do you use?

We’ve been on 2 WC so far. We had open seating on both cruises. There was 1 couple that we found to be a quite dumb. We asked the MDR hostess to not seat us with them again (didn’t tell her why). There were other boorish couples but they seemed to have fixed seating so we didn’t interact with them. The majority of people were interesting and well rounded and we enjoyed chatting with them during dinner. We made some really good friends that we traveled with on the 2nd WC and have plans to visit in their hometowns. And yeah, there were a handful of loud and obnoxious people that we would just laugh at.

I see a few familiar faces in the photo of the singers and dancers. Nice to see that some returned this year.

I don’t work for any company that sells insurance, but I doubt it. I know for my world cruises, I’ve had somewhat limited insurance offerings. Many don’t cover more than 90 days. We tacked on pre and post cruise trips to visit friends in Florida. The length of time we were gone exceeded the max duration for our trip insurance. So we calculated it from the day we left home until the day the ship returned to Florida. We figured once we were in the US, our regular medical insurance would cover us.

I’ve been able to roll the coverage to another trip.

I wasn’t able to use them in 2022 for prepayment of crew appreciation for the 2023 World Cruise.

Sounds like Kimberly is an improvement over the 2023 WC Cruise Director!

I sent you email 😀

Oh no! Who lost their passport?

Nope. My insurance will pay me directly.

@crystalspin that was my understanding too. I found out about the AARP gift cards and used them for a large portion of our 2023 World Cruise payment. I am now stockpiling them for the 2025 Pole to Pole cruise. For these long cruises, I need to buy trip insurance anyway for medical and evacuation purposes anyway.

If you had to cancel the cruise at the last minute (for a covered reason), would Chase reimburse you for the entire cruise? Or just up to the amount you paid on the CSR?

Good to know! I was planning on booking 1 way flights for the Pole to Pole cruise in Jan 2025 in a few weeks (have to wait until about 11 months out for flight availability). Since the cruise is 133 days, the return flights won’t be available until June at the earliest. I guess I’ll have to wait until then to book round-trip flights. thanks for the info.

@The-Inside-Cabin makes sense!!

Pete - why did you check 5 pieces of luggage instead of sending them via Luggage Forward? Don’t you get unlimited luggage shipment?

I think the mani/pedis are overpriced, but similar to hotel prices. The price for haircut and color is a bit less than I pay at home. Massage prices are also higher than I pay at home. However I’ve found it’s similar to hotels.

You can certainly pay for a friends’s meal. However, the price will depend on their Mariner status. We have done it several times on the World Cruise as a thank you to others.

@SUESEABE I found it. Thanks!

Can you please share the link to the blog? I’d be interested in following it too. TIA.

Excellent point!

A friend posted a photo of her OV cabin that had the bed on the side wall, not under the window. It was the 1st time I had seen an OV in that configuration. It looked so odd to me.

I laugh every time someone says that they have door decorations so they can find their cabin. That’s what the numbers next to the door are for! 😆

My TA send me the HAL invoice every time it is updated by HAL or when I make a payment.Actually, I get 2 as she send mine and my husband’s to me.

Hi Pete, Hope you and Judy have a great time. We will be following your journey!

@OlsSalt @POA1 I checked the HAL website and only see 12 decks and that is what I based my answer on. However, you are correct! The Sky deck is NOT shown on the drop down list, nor in the PDF of all decks. I then checked my old printed Cruise Atlas (from April 2019). It includes diagrams of every deck - except the Sky deck! Next to the diagram of the full ship, it has the Sky deck listed with "(not shown)" next to it. I'm sorry for the confusion!