Raybit

According to Holland's webpage for Standby "To join the standby list for your preferred cruise, contact your travel advisor or call 877-724-5425."

Assigned an inside on Deck 5. Last time was an Aft Verandah on Deck 4. 😉

Have been able to add HIA, pre-pay gratuities and get checked in with no problems. Much smoother than our first standby (also San Diego) in January.

Just notified via email that we are cleared for 23 March sailing but have not yet received a room. Much earlier than our <2 day notice on the last standby but that notice came with a room number…Will share how this turns out!

Yes - when you are notified that you have cleared the list the email invites you to contact HA for the HIA package if you would like.

Yep - we got 14 points for a 7-day standby cruise, Aft Vista Suite with HIA package.

We were able to check in (on line) almost as soon as we received the booking number - about 20 days out from embarkation. However, we were not able to access the final boarding docs until we received the email about ~48 hours prior to departure. Even then the boarding pass had no bar code, so we had to the check in counter to have them re-enter most of what we had done for online check in. And, as indicated previously, our account and HIA package took a few days to stabilize.

You do get points - we added the HIA package and got 14 points for our 7 day standby cruise in January.

As PublicPersona indicated, the timeline is NOT as stated on the Holland America standby webpage, but rather seems to be more like ~ 48 hours. This was the case for our January 6th sailing as indicated in this thread. I suspect (hope?) that this program is an attempt to fill cabins in such a manner as to avoid having to "oversell" and turn people away at the port as some other lines are doing...businessinsider.com/what-happens-when-a-cruise-is-overbooked-2023-12 If Holland America can update its Terms and Conditions, both on the website and with their agents, to reflect the actual expectation vice the misleading "approximately seven days" this may be a good alternative for those who can meet its conditions. Signed up for a Standby on March 23rd and expecting to know if we cleared the list ~24 hours prior, hopefully more like 48 but as noted in the thread the actual timing remains suspect. Good luck!

We received an Aft Vista Suite, 4221.

PublicPersona - we were notified by email ~47.5 hours before sailing. After receiving the email we checked our boarding and our cabin assignment was there. We the called and successfully added HIA. Also tried to get JA help with online boarding but it was too late leading to the problems described in previous posts. Good luck!!

Update: We were notified at 1533 on Thursday that we were accepted for the Saturday 1500 sailing…and decided to go. This was too close to sailing to complete online checkin, and even calling HA and having them try to enter data was unsuccessful. As Rj mentioned, the port staff were not sure how to handle standby passengers as we had no boarding pass with a barcode. Advice is to just proceed to actual check in desk but even then, after manually having photos taken, data entered (to included credit card), and completed we boarded the ship with an unsigned yellow sticky that said, “Standby passengers, not in the system, use passport”. Also as Rj mentioned, account wasn’t properly set up, so even though we did pre-purchase the HIA charges showed up for three days and twice we were unable to make a purchase since “no CC was on file.” I did have a hard copy of the Shareholder Credit email that stated that we were to received $100 OBC and while it was rejected twice we stuck to our guns and received it. No Military/AARP credit thought as mentioned. Eventually everything worked out, but spent too much time in Customer Service line - will give it time to settle out next time… We are writing off some of this to this being the first Standby out of San Diego. We enjoyed the onboard experience enough that I called HA from the Customer Service desk and was placed on the Standby List for a March cruise. Interestingly, the HA Agent was out of Florida and had sailed twice on Standby herself. The statement she read to me to confirm booking varied in that it said confirmation would come approximately one week out but could be anytime up to embarkation day. She also stated that she was surprised by the late notice we had received on this cruise and that 3-5 days was more typical, though this was just her opinion based on her experiences. However the statement in the email confirmation that I received was the same as on the original Standby Program pdf - “approximately 7 days”. As mentioned, we are already on the list again, but we hope that HA refines its processes and communications as it continues. Hopefully all of the posts by our fellow HA cruisers enable you to make a better informed decision! We will be making some specific suggestions to HA as well 😉

If the verbiage had suggested that we would not know if cleared until (potentially) the day before embarkation we would not have signed up. It states "approximately 7 days prior to the cruise" and we figured roughly 7 plus/minus 2 days we would know and that would be plenty of time. We heard crickets until less than 48 hours before underway and that is too stressful for us. Still a great deal - simply not executed as described.

So - after spending an hour on the phone and receiving an email that did NOT acknowledge my request for being removed with a full refund as we requested...we received an email stating that we had cleared the list and assigning us a room. We are going - but I concur that the program is not as advertised, and therefore we have had an unnecessarily stressful experience. Note: we did get an aft vista suite as our assigned room - so the cost savings is pretty significant!

Thanks - on the phone with them now. Seems like they really misrepresented how they were using the Standby Program.

Update - we are on standby for the 6 January cruise out of San Diego. Have heard nothing from HA even though their web page clearly states that they will notify us of acceptance (confirmed with agent also should notify of non-acceptance) "approximately 7 days before cruise ship departure. When I checked in today, they said that "approximately" can be anytime up to embarkation. BIG DIFFERENCE and we would not have signed up under these conditions. Unfortunately, the only way they have to cancel is to the standard forfeiture of all but taxes and port fees. Still working but wanted to share with the community... Has anyone cleared the waitlist for the this cruise?

On the list for a 7 day out of San Diego in January. Simple phone call, you put the money up front, it gets refunded ONLY if you do not get selected. Agent stated it was first come, first served with no choice but room could be anything from Inside to Veranda. We'll see how it goes!