groundloop

Scrapping Freedom doesn't make a bit of sense given that she's already at a shipyard having work done, not to mention the fact that she's going to be earning badly needed revenue for CCL just as soon as she can safely sail again. Plus, as at least one person who seems to know what he's talking about has said, the damage isn't nearly THAT bad.

OK, I found my invoice (we'd rebooked this cruise twice because of covid). And yes, I have free drinks, signature dining package, and prepaid gratuities, but no internet.

Yes, I booked this cruise on the HAL website. And I saved a screenshot of the promotional information from when I booked.

Where on the HAL website does it indicate if you have internet? Last March, when I booked my upcoming cruise under "Have It All" it showed free internet only for suite guests (which we're not), whereas now it says that everyone who books "Have It All" gets free internet. I'm thinking that I probably won't be getting that perk, but would like to make sure of that before I go ahead and purchase it.

Yes I did but was told they weren't available but she couldn't tell me anything more. No idea why we were moved and no idea why on the very day that they moved us our original cabins were gone. Frankly I'm done with this issue and am ready to move on from it now that daughter's cabin is close to us. I don't really give a hoot about trying to extract some sort of compensation for being inconvenienced, that's not the way I roll. I just have to think that HAL could do a lot better job of communicating with their customers and this will certainly be in the back of my head when I decide who to sail with on future cruises.

Well, so far (knock on wood) we're not experiencing any such issues (but that's only for domestic US flights).

The websites you can access without paying for internet access will only be Holland America sites to make it easier for you to spend money while on board. To do crossword puzzles you'll have to pay.

I've just decided that I'm never going to even begin to think about booking a flight through a cruise line. What a damned mess, they certainly need to treat customers better than this.

I tried, they wouldn't budge.

After another 45+ minute hold I got through to a customer service agent. She never could figure out why they moved us, but at least our daughter got moved to a cabin near us. I'm sure it'll all be ok, but I'm still annoyed about this. I've been on enough cruises to know where on a ship we like to be, we booked well over a year ago to make sure we got the cabins we wanted, and then they change us at the last minute for no apparent reason (and didn't even have the courtesy to tell us we got moved).

I was on hold for 45 minutes and gave up because I had to take care of something.

Yes, it's the same category.... both aft view Verandahs, but in my opinion we've moved to a less desirable location (although I know that argument won't hold water with HAL). Also, we booked this one directly from the HAL website - no travel agent or PVP (or whatever HAL calls them, I normally cruise with Carnival).

ALSO, I checked the HAL website and the cabins next to us are selling for $800 less than what we paid when we booked. Since they moved us to a different cabin I wonder if I'd have an argument that we should be refunded the price difference. (Does it show that I'm pretty annoyed with HAL right now?)

I doubt that they'd use an aft view balcony as a quarantine cabin. PLUS I'd have expected to be notified of a cabin change so close to sailing instead of them expecting us to figure it out. Since I'd already printed all of our documents it could have been kind of a mess if I hadn't noticed.

We're on Eurdam leaving June 11th. I'd already printed all of our documents and luggage tags and for some reason happened to look at our account on their website and it dawned on me that we suddenly are in a different cabin than we'd originally booked. It's the same category (aft balcony), but on deck 5 instead of 7. We've been booked for over a year and got this particular cabin to be as close as possible to our daughter. I'm about to get on the phone with them to see what's going on, but wonder if anyone else has had them do this. What's really annoying is they never gave me any notification they were doing this, I only got an email indicating that my boarding time had been changed.

I've been on enough excursions that I'm fairly comfortable with a 1 1/2 hour window, but definitely not just 30 minutes. That's why I'd like to talk to a real live person to get clarification as to why there's a discrepancy between the excursion description and what shows up in my itinerary. Also, instead of a PVP I use a travel agent most of the time - they bribe me with extra OBC (in this case the travel agent is giving me $525 OBC). In any case - does anyone know if there's someone at Carnival who can answer specific questions about excursions? It kind of sounds like there's not, at least for now.

Well damn - I'm gonna' let John Heald know that Guy's fries aren't up to snuff and if he can't get the problem fixed I'm cancelling all the cruises I have booked through 2024. 😁

Is there anyone at Carnival who can answer specific detailed questions about shore excursions? I've been searching for a phone support number and all I can come up with is a number to call if I need help with how to purchase excursions on the website. Of course I could call that number, sit on hold for who knows how long only to be told they can't help me, so instead of that frustration I figured I'd see if anyone has been through this lately. (My dilemma is that of the exact timing of an excursion, I'm trying to fit two excursions into one stop in Maui on our September cruise to Hawaii. In the description online it says the first excursion departs at 8:30 AM and lasts 6 hours. That should have us back at the ship at 2:30 PM which should be adequate time to get ready for the second excursion which starts at 4:00 PM. In the order acknowledgement in my itinerary it shows the first excursion ending at 3:30 PM, and if that's correct I'm not comfortable trying to cut it that close. )

I'm curious - which religion has deeply held beliefs that vaccination is wrong?

I wouldn't count on that. You need to be connected to the ship's wifi to use the hub app and it's pretty iffy from the beach at HMC.

When using Port Valet how does the airline deal with charging for checked luggage? (GRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!....... what a ripoff !!!!!!!!)

So did you have a question? As far as masks at port stops, that's totally out of Carnival's control. They have to follow guidelines issued by each country. Masking will be done when each country decides that the pandemic has subsided to a safe level.

Would it be prudent doing this if our flight isn't until the evening (7:30 PM)? We are planning to spend the afternoon seeing a couple of sights in Seattle before heading to the airport.

I'm an experienced cruiser but have not been on HAL yet. I'm curious how debarkation works on HAL, everything from picking up luggage zone tags (if that's even a thing on HAL), luggage pickup by the crew, what order passengers are called to get off, etc. (We'll be on Eurodam Jun 11th).

Dang, what is it with Carnival recently? There's these problems with Vista, reported problems with Miracle, and of course the issues with Magic and Freedom today. And I believe I'm missing one or two others. This is starting to feel like the manufacturing plant I used to work at that chose to cut preventive maintenance to save money in the short term (but of course wound up creating much bigger headaches down the road).