3rdGenCunarder

Your boarding pass looks like mine. I thought the orange border might be like the orange stripe on the key card, for quick recognition. Wow, priority has its own door in FLL. Unfortunately, my cruise has been moved to Miami, where the staff will not be as familiar with HAL's way of doing things.

One day in Rekjavik led to two weeks in Iceland, so you never know what port you'll fall in love with.

I don't know if I'm unusual in this aspect, but one of the things I like about a variety of ports on a cruise is finding places I want to return to for more than just a day. I wonder how many people do come back for longer (and more expenditures) after a sample visit.

I think your first and third paragraphs explain why Bar Harbor is limiting cruise ships. I have seen the sidewalks overflowing with people and have heard grumblings that hotels are losing business because land-based travelers don't want to deal with the cruise crowds. Over the years, I haven't seen changes in the port area businesses. They even still have an independent bookstore, one of my markers of a town that has kept its character. I wonder if they're afraid they won't be able to fight the pressure from the influx of thousands of people and lose that character. You can't get it back once Diamonds/emeralds/tanzanite International and Del Sol take root.

Now, there's a way to convince him to reduce his screen time. Keep logging him off!

Rules here forbid telling us who your agency is, but is it large enough for you to escalate above her supervisor? Did you check your credit card to see if HAL or the agency issued a refund? Did check the website to see if your cabins are still available? Will anyone at HAL hold them for you until Monday when you can try again to get satisfaction from the agency? There are some travel agents on this board. I hope one will chime in here to give you some advice on next steps.

I just got the 15 day reminder email. All sorts of advice, like keep meds in your carryon, be sure you're at the airport 2 hours before your flight (domestic). One item I hadn't noticed before was to have the same credit card I used to set up my account. I've never had my card checked since they put check-in on the website. I did check-in so long ago that I had to go into the account to see which card I had given them. I have to say, I like the new design. The "gate keepers" can't miss that orange border, and the 4-star logo is larger than it used to me.

I book direct and I still have to keep an eye on United. I don't think I've ever flown to the US northwest and not had a flight change. And usually, they don't tell me--I stumble on the change when checking something else. It happened last year on a flight to Ohio and just recently on a flight from Miami. Okay, I get that schedules change. But passengers need to be notified!

I rarely take full-day tours, partly because the lunch tends to take too long, wasting precious time for sightseeing. Plus, that leaves me half a day (or all day if I don't do a tour) to walk around on my own. I recently read an article about taking a "photo safari." Just grab your camera and go for a walk. Like this is some new idea? I've been doing that my whole life! I have kept track. I keep way too much paper from cruises. I finally reached the point where I knew I had to purge excess stuff. While I was at it, I made up a spreadsheet. I'm well over a year, but don't think I will make it to two. My goal has been a year on Cunard, which I will reach this summer. I've only got about 6 months on HAL, so I'm not going to make it to a year there.

I just checked mine for a cruise in two weeks. I have a bar code, but still no boarding time/group. Or do they leave that "to be assigned" since priority does not have to wait for assigned times? And is there any priority order within the ever-expanding priority groups? The boarding pass design has changed since my last HAL cruise a year ago. Can't miss that orange border!

Well, somebody has to be last. And it was 5 minutes before all aboard, so you weren't late. HAL captains love to leave early and have a little extra time to get to the next port.

It's a long time since I've been to Key West. Sad that the port area has become generified. I will see it in a few weeks. I hope the foodie tour I'm taking will go to local-owned businesses. One town in Alaska that has held onto control is Sitka. They have kept out the "carbon copy businesses," as @TRLD so aptly put it, but I wonder how long that will last. Since they enlarged the cruise piers, the building no longer has a nice locally-made market, but a larger more generic souvenir store.

Thanks. I had promo meals and my WC meals on my last cruise. I went to the purser's desk to make my bookings, but I'm still not sure if I got everything I was supposed to. I think I was supposed to have two verandah lunches but I forgot to book the second one. Sometimes all those promo bits and pieces are hard to keep track of!

I love museum shops! They often have things that I won't see anywhere else. I would probably buy more books if they weren't heavy and my shelves weren't already full.

When you think about someone on a land vacation, there's hotel cost and three meals a day on top of tours, souvenirs and such. Yes, that's a lot more than the average cruise spends. If I'm going to eat or buy something, I look for a local business, not a port chain store or chain restaurant. Partly for the fun and partly to do my bit to support locals. But I know I'm not putting nearly as much money into the economy as a land visitor is.

With any luck, we might see him jump overboard!

Cunard just send me an email reminding me of my WC perks. One is the complimentary meal at the pop-up or lunch at Verandah. I forgot about that and have already booked a Verandah lunch for my July cruise. They're only offering it on the first two sea days, so I didn't want to miss it. When I booked this, there was no way to say that it would be my WC "freebie" (I use quotes because it isn't free--I've paid for it little by little over many cruises 😉). So when I'm onboard, can I ask to have the cost credited to my account or back to my credit card? HAL will do this for Mariner discounts, but I don't remember if Cunard will.

Can you order something from the pop-up in PG, or just in QG?

Some people just look for things to complain about. I remember overhearing a man in the computer room on QE2 writing a letter to add to his end of cruise survey. The wine waiter had broken a cork opening a bottle of wine. "And it ruined my cruise." He really did say that.

Do you know that for sure? I do a mix of ship tours and independent tours, so I do a lot of research. In the past, I've seen prices for ship tours in the Caribbean and Canada/New England cruises to be very close to tours booked independently. Even Alaska didn't seem to have much of a mark-up. Of course, I don't know how much the vendor discounts to the cruise line, but I doubt it's half. In smaller ports, especially Alaksa, I have to take a ship's tour because the cruise line contracts with the vendors--their websites tell you to book through your cruiselines. Sometimes all the vendors are booked up. For example, all the jet boats in Wrangell are contracted with Cunard for the day I'm there. So if I want to see the bear sanctuary I have to go through Cunard. Lately, however, I have noticed that HAL is marking up tours more than is reasonable. For the Iceland/Greenland/Canada cruise this summer, there are a lot of small ports. Nothing available to book independently in the little towns and the tours seem awfully expensive for what they are. In one Iceland port, HAL is selling a whale watch that they warn is "not exclusive" to HAL. Nope, I can by my ticket in advance for half the price and walk 2 blocks to the boat.

Last winter, nobody from shorex said anything about using the room key. They just said to use the app. I didn't want to take my cell to the beach, but it was the only way I knew to have a ticket. I think I've learned more about HAL here than I have from many cruises on HAL.

More than that if I'm taking a tour because there aren't many tours for $65, especially on HAL these days. Less if I'm just wandering and taking pictures. Then all I might spend is the price of ice cream and/or a coffee and/or a bakery goodie or maybe a local beer. I do like to browse markets and I might buy a piece of jewelry if I see something unusual. But I don't bother with the chain stores in the port malls. I guess if I averaged the tour days and the independent wander days, I might come out around $60-70. But it feels like less than that because I pay for tours in advance.

Are you sure it was deck 5? I just looked, and I was on 7. I had a strange daybed/sofa under the TV. (I shouldn't have called it a "fainting couch" because those have a sloped end.) And if you look at Lisa's pictures, the china cabinet and desk were by the door. In 7188, the bed and sofa/daybed were near the door.

I'm not sure why that's fun? $2 bills are often considered unlucky because it's easy to confuse them with singles. Register drawers don't usually have a slot for them, so they could be put with the singles and counted as $1 instead of $2.

You can't run two devices on one account at the same time. That's why it prompts you to log off the first device when you try to log on the second. So there wouldn't be two devices already on when you try to log on with the third. I'm not sure if you would have to buy two separate accounts or pay extra to use two devices at the same time on one account. But you can't buy one account and use multiple devices simultaneously.