darjeff

Did the math on our upcoming 2026 42-day cruise for a couple. Early booking HIA includes $600 excursion credit, gratuities, elite drink package, premium wi-fi, and 3 dinners. Bottom line, adding all the costs of these benefits (excluding drinks) leaves you a deficit of $16 per person, per day. If you and your partner have more than one glass of wine, cocktails or coffee you will be ahead.

We took four cruises last year. On all cruises we were allowed to use OBC for pre-purchased excursions and our costs were reimbursed back to our VISA once we took each respective excursion. With have-it-all it's tough to spend down OBC so we were grateful for the "cash back".

Ridiculous story - our friends joining us on this cruise had their Japanese citrus soy sauce confiscated by HAL security because it contained 25% alcohol. Yep, there was the fear these folks were going to imbibe in some serious soy sauce cocktails at HAL's expense. Actually, they may have been tempted due to HAL's chronic shortages of wine, beer and other bar staples.