tupper10

The medical and repatriation coverage from Holland America is not sufficient for an out of the country trip IMHO. What Holland America trip coverage does do is let you cancel your trip for any reason and get 90% of your cost back for the platinum plan. If you have issues during the trip you will get $$. back. If you purchase private travel insurance w/in 14 days of your first payment you can buy any of the travel insurance plans offered by private companies and determine the amount of coverage you need. Sorry I can't answer any of your Covid questions. Not sure if cruise critic will let me post this but we use a site that has a square mouth to get our quotes.

We had only sailed on Celebrity and with our children on Royal Caribbean. We did not like that Celebrity now has the ship within the ship experience. We also thought the price point was much higher than Holland America/Princess. We also did not want an infinity veranda which for us meant that it was unusable for the hot Caribbean where all the a/c would leave the room when we opened it up. We tried the Statendam this past winter for a Caribbean cruise and loved it. With that being said - we don't care about the large production shows and doing trivia etc during the day. Instead we booked a retreat - and we stayed there with a private hot tub and breakfast and lunch delivered to us in our cabana. We booked two more cruises with Holland thanks to our experience with them.

You need to contact senior people at HAL the agents give you ridiculous answers to questions like this. The airline changed the flight not you, HAL should change your flight with no charge unless it is American who is demanding the fee for the change - in which case you need to deal with American or HAL does.

I use Squaremouth and always call them.

Oops meant all season long from May through October 🙂

Thank you - wish they would do this one all year long I think they would have a lot of people interested in visiting these types of ports - the one they discontinued sounds fabulous.

That is one on our bucket list as well in 2024. Do you recommend the one in May or the one in September?

I suggest that in your emails and discussion with the cruise line staff you not use the word "negligence" as I agree that this will probably get your issue sent to legal. The alternative is to say that your wife slipped on some water in the hallway on the named ship with the date, which caused her to have a broken arm, and you would like reimbursement for the out of pocket medical expenses she has incurred both on the ship and 'off the ship'. Then submit the bills. I am assuming that you had no travel insurance since if you did this would cover your medical costs. If you want reimbursement for more than out of pocket medical expenses you will need an attorney in the Washington state area as set forth in the cruise contract, and note the notice requirements and time to bring this lawsuit is fairly short for personal injury cases. Also I am pretty sure that if you are given any monies from Holland America they will ask you to waive any and all other rights for additional damages and accept these monies as full settlement of your claim.

Make sure you file your claims w/in the time frames listed on your policy. They can be quite short and require doctor visits and documentation w/in very specific periods of time. Do NOT trust what the agent tells you over the phone. Start the claims process for both policies you hold online now. This way you have documented your claim(s). They can then pay out as agreed by the policy terms.

Email the head people. I would also let them know how dissatisfied you are with their service.

It is impossible to travel anywhere in that much pain. I am sure that the thought of doing anything at all is beyond our husband right now. I hope he feels better soon.

Elliot.org has the company email addresses. I have used them sparingly but when I could not get a major issue resolved I heard back right away and got a call from corporate to address my concerns. I do not use it to make/change reservations etc that my travel agent does - and why I use one, so I don't have to wait on hold for ridiculous amounts of time. I find customer service for almost all companies is a thing of the past.

So sorry to hear this, hope your husband feels better soon.

We gave up on Celebrity due to the blaring music as well as the fact that the last cruises we went on with Celebrity/RC they did a poor job of accommodating my food allergies. I had no issues with Holland America - they did a much better job. Holland America also has music 24/7 in the Lido, hallways, pool decks etc. but there are still a few spots you can find w/o it. This is one of my major complaints with all cruise lines especially now that we can listen to the music we like with our own devices.

We loved this ship and sailed in December of last year. We started with an aft cabin on deck 5 which we did not like since the vibration and noise of the wake bothered us. The staff was wonderful and offered to move us to either an aft deck 7 or a mid ship room - though the aft on deck 7 was much quieter with hardly any vibration we decided to go with a midship cabin. I think any of the ones on deck 6 or 7 are fine -on deck 5 when you look down from some rooms, you see the life boats so your view of the ocean is not as good. We also paid for the retreat and loved it - we had a quiet place to relax on board during the day, with breakfast and lunch delivered to us on our chaise,, along with water, fruits, and snacks provided. One thing to keep in mind - decide if you like sunrise or sunset - we had a sunset room - the starboard side, and it got very warm in the afternoon. Our trip had more days going south than north. Look at the itinerary and decide what works for you. We loved the ship and staff, and had a fabulous time. It was our first cruise on Holland America and we booked more cruises with them due to our wonderful experience.

We did the holiday cruise last year and though there were some kids I think your son will have a better time on Princess or Royal Caribbean if he likes to go to shows, watch movies under the stars and have a lot more kids his age on board. We love Holland America for us but with our kids we take other cruise lines.

I just got off the phone with shore excursions from Holland America and asked the same question. I was assured that you can book your shore excursions in advance and that once on board you only need to go to the shore excursion desk and ask them to use your onboard credit for the same excursion and then whatever you charged on your credit card will be put back on your credit card. I asked this over and over again and the agent said that is Holland America's policy. Of course I would love to get this in writing but I was told that they can't email me with the confirmation though I do have the agent's name and information. Perhaps others can call shore excursions to confirm this policy as well.

Thank you that is what I thought.

Another question about OBC - we have our crew appreciation included as well as any drinks and wifi we need in the HIA package we have. We also have lots of OBC and other than laundry we wanted to use it for 2 things - one for excursions but many of the ones we want will sell out if we wait to book on board - is there a way to book early and then switch the excursion once on the ship to use the OBC to pay for it and get refunded to our credit card and 2. we like to give the staff that helps us - (I have the same staff all the time in the MDR due to food allergies) extra $$ for their service, can we use the OBC to do this? Thank you.

One suggestion for your Alaska trip if you are only doing this one time go on a ship that does Glacier Bay. It is well worth it and the other glaciers while 'nice to see' don't compare. Just my 2. cents having been to Alaska 4 times on various ships.

On the Northern Europe board there is a CC member who has given great advice about which ports are the ones to see. My suggestion is to check out what he says about the different ports and then select your sailing.

If you want to see something different visit the National Park in Aruba - very interesting and we did it on an ATV.

If you have not seen the canal from the ship my suggestion is to stay on board. It is a wonderful experience and so much fun. We did it on Cunard and I can't wait to do it again. As I recall at the time we went excursions were not even offered since the passage through the canal was the excursion 🙂

Question re laundry - do they use perfumed detergent? I am allergic to perfume and I would love to use the laundry service.

Collared shirt - even a polo shirt with a collar is fine along with a pair of slacks (not jeans). From what we have seen men and women's dress for 'formal nights' is now anything but formal.