Mandalay1903

1 hour ago, kazu said:

They might know something more about Hawaii’s limitations and complications to arrive there by cruise ship than we do 😉

 

That may be true, but there are a number of other 2020 Hawaii cruises on the Koningsdam and other HAL ships that have not been cancelled...yet. It could be that they have other plans for the Koningsdam during the January/February 2021 timeframe.

Happily, my experienced PCC is still onboard.  The only downside I have with the PCC program is that it's difficult to get things done through them on a weekend or after hours, as the offices are closed. So, I exercise some patience and all is well on Monday.

Thank you for posting. Makes sense to cancel these well before the final payment deadline, as this move generally aligns with Canada's cruise moratorium.

Another bank of elevators on the Koningsdam would be great. On that class of ship they added capacity for an additional 500 guests, or so, beyond the Eurodam and no additional elevators. Therefore much longer waits for the 'vators. That said, in the post-Covid world the cruise ships might be running with much lower passenger counts and this problem might be resolved. So, Ashford's original lack of foresight on the elevators may turn into a demonstration of great vision!

I have sent mine in up to a year in advance with no problems, however, for one cruise I tried to send it more than a year in advance and it was rejected.  The bigger problem that I tend to have is that every time I buy the CCL stock for onboard credit purposes, the stock tanks. Then when I eventually sell (at the inevitable loss), the stock rises...  😞

Thank you, friends, in Australia and NZ for your candid comments. We're booked for an Australia cruise in 1/2021, but have little expectation that it will take place particularly with passengers from our neck of the woods. We're so very happy to have visited NZ and parts of Australia on a trip 18 months ago. So sorry that this virus has spread and gotten out of hand in so many parts of the world, whether we acknowledge it or not. Keep up the great work on keeping it under control in your areas and we hope to visit in the future..

We loved the Marriott Harbour Circular Quay as well. Great location to the ferries, trains, downtown, opera house, and our cruise ship terminal.  There was some construction going on across the street at the time (1-1/2 years ago), but that might be finished up by now.

Seems so ironic to me that this post topic came up today. The owners of the home next door to ours are having it tented for termites today. Similar concept, I guess, except that the product described in the article seems much less toxic to humans. Either way, the treatment only works for a finite time period and later on pests will enter into your home again one way or another. Same with a cruise ship.

I believe the islands like NZ, Hawaii, Fiji and Iceland have their borders almost entirely closed with substantial quarantine requirements for most people who enter. When they open their gates to outside tourism again all bets are off, IMO.  It seems to me that there is so much work to do in the rest of the world to get our infection rates down low enough for them to consider hosting us. We'll see about Hawaii which, as with all the US states, are facing great pressure to reopen for business. Flying from mainland US to Hawaii could have a lot more restrictions than simply driving to the next state on the mainland.

We've heard that Covid-19 can be spread via airborne droplets from human respiration including coughing, sneezing, singing (therefore the face masks and physical distancing) and by picking up the virus from surfaces (therefore all the recent emphasis on surface cleaning). But I don't recall reading much about the relative likelihood of catching the virus from airborne droplets versus from surfaces, and I'm not even sure whether it's possible to tell.

As KirkNC says, this could be another "arrow in the quiver", but there is still a lot of work to do on the spread by airborne droplets.

Seems like it could be a good part of the solution. Still doesn't solve the problem of community transmission (person to person) especially by asymptomatic carriers sharing a dinner table or sitting at the main stage. Also there's the issue of contracting Covid 19 during shore excursions.

I suggest not doing anything until your desired 2022 itinerary becomes available. Then make the change and in the meantime your 2021 options will still be open.

2 hours ago, Paulinda said:

I totally agree with DaveOKC.  Every HAL cruise we booked with our PCC I felt the we got the best cabin at the best price.  Usually if there was a 'sale' going on (ie drink package, OBC and or gratuities) we would opt out and get a much, much better cabin price.  And he knew what we wanted were usually able to book a cabin in an area of the ship we preferred.

I agree with Paulinda and DaveOKC w/r/t working with the same very qualified PCC. I like working with the same person cruise after cruise, and I know that they won't lose interest in my needs once the cruise is booked. They're also great at answering inside questions about HAL or FlightEase.

10 hours ago, T8NCruise said:

And if they HAVE been let go, their email and phone number will be useless, so you can't phone and ask them if they've been let go, LOL, as has been suggested.

If you can't get through to your PCC, simply call the PCC main line, dial 0, and you'll get an available PCC. Just ask them whether your PCC is still with HAL.

Not interested, even apart from Covid-19 concerns. A cruise needs a great itinerary to be worthwhile.

Driving from Rothenburg to Potsdam, Germany. Visiting the Museum Barberini. Prior to our North Cape cruise.

Yes, I would. I cruise for the itineraries, not the crowds.

No.

5 hours ago, Tampa Girl said:

Curious - to those of you who think HAL will get chopped, rather than Princess, why?  HAL has been around along time and has, arguably, the better itineraries.  Would like to hear your reasons - but hope that you will be proven wrong.

I'm not one of those suggesting either HAL or Princess would get chopped. Personally I'd like to see Carnival keep them both because I think they serve different markets and, especially, different itineraries. 

That said, the benefit that Princess brings to Carnival is their larger ("huge") ship sizes. They have much larger ships than HAL and I think that makes them more profitable on a per passenger basis. Koningsdam, Nieuw Statendam, and Ryndam fit that mold ("ilk").

I can safely say that my wife and I wouldn't want to sail on the large Princess-sized cruise ships. We've sailed the Koningsdam twice, and don't want to sail a ship that large again. Too many people--too little space. We're very happy with the Vista class ships, and after sailing the Veendam and Zaandam we don't want to go big.  No Princess for us...

22 hours ago, The Beaver said:

Hello

 

When you said refunds, do you mean the cruise far and/or excursions and /or flights  and/or other advanced onboard  payment that you made for things like C.O. or  beverages etc ?

 Thank you 

These refunds were for prepaid shore excursions. The cruise hadn't hit the final payment deadline yet so I'm not out any funds for the basic cruise, just an FCC and the FCD but I'm not worried about that. The odd thing about these excursion refunds is that they took less than two weeks, yet some of my other cancelled shore excursion refunds (for a different cruise) took 51 days to post. Those excursions were cancelled in March and refunded in May.  The good thing about it all is that there are refunds being processed by HAL, albeit irregularly and slowly...

3 hours ago, Eric79DAM said:

so any cruise from Sydney in Nov or Dec 2020 likely to be cancel too ?

My comment was speculation on my part, but based on a good CC posting named "Australia/ New Zealand Early 2021".  In that post some OZ and AZ locals speculate that their governments won't be opening up their borders any time soon (meaning into next year) and certainly not until there is a viable and readily available vaccine for Covid. A person from NZ on that posting also questions whether their government will let anyone at all visit NZ from North America.

I'm not in the medical field and I'm certainly not looking for a debate, but I think a vaccine needs not only be formulated, but also tested, validated, produced, distributed, and administered. Then, if foreign governments (in the case of my cruise Australia, Indonesia and Singapore) require a vaccine for travel (as our posting friend suggests) it also needs to verify that the traveler has taken the vaccine.

Successfully completing this all in less than eight months just seems unlikely to me.  Nevertheless, we'll stay booked on this January 2021 cruise and see how things look as we approach the final payment date.

We read on May 6 that our August 2020 B2B cruises would be cancelled. We received cancellation notification emails on May 13. We received refunds on our credit card today.

We have five cruises booked for 2021: January 2021 Maasdam Sydney to Singapore (tho' I expect it will be cancelled by Australia), May and June 2021 Westerdam in Mediterranean (I'm guessing 25% chance these will be cancelled), and August 2021 in Iceland and September 2021 Veendam in UK (I feel confident these will take place).

Sadly, we had five cruises cancelled in 2020--the "Year that Wasn't"...

Thank you for posting this. Very sad to hear this news.

FWIW, on 3/19/2020 I cancelled four prepaid HAL shore excursions. The EXC desk said that it would take up to 60 days for the refund. The refunds credited my cc today (51 days) and I did not have to contact my cc issuer to request a charge back.