sunviking90

Good Morning Kazu, Thank you for the work you do maintaining this list. Can you please add us: Volendam - 22-Nov-23 - 18 day Circle Hawaii, sunviking90. No special occasion, just want to enjoy this smaller ship while she is still with us and DH is always up for a trip to Hawaii.

My new favorite after the sad departure of the Love Boat Dream. That new thing they have is a pitiful imposter.

I don’t know why, but we only used it once one our first cruise post Covid last yr since it covered Covid. The medical coverage if I recall wasn’t very much dollar wise, so we haven’t used it since. We have a premium credit card that has very good coverage, so we rely on that. If you’re over 65 that might not be an option though. Obviously it’s not CFAR, but you won’t find that with real insurance. Have you visited the Canadian cruisers forum? There may be more good recommendations there. They are usually very knowledgeable.

I was getting that before I upgraded my 6 year old iPad. New one loads their pages better. Just now I was getting prices as unavailable. I logged out and prices show. Oh, those crazy kids at HAL IT.

Oh well. There goes that theory🤷‍♀️

I wonder if it depends on the class of ship and size of laundry room? The Royal class ship laundry rooms are much larger and seem to always have free machines. On the older ships they are tiny with only 2 machines of each that seem to be always occupied. I can see why they wouldn’t encourage elites to use them when they’re too scarce to service the rest of the passengers.

Wanted to add that if you cruise with the HIA it does seem earlier is better with extras sometimes included. For us, we don’t drink, and only cruise with the standard fare so later is often better. A few years back, when we were working and had to prebook vacations farther out, we did get burned a few times as we watched the prices drop after final payment for our cruises on HAL. This could be because we tend to book repositionings, etc and avoid the 7 day loops. I usually know what I want to pay for a certain itinerary, and when I see it at the point I’ll book. It usually works out.

We also book most of our cruises after final payment now that we are retired and flexible with dates. We generally find we get the best price this way and have never had a problem getting a satisfactory cabin. If you are someone who cruises in suites, they are usually gone by then so that could be a con. Exceptions for us are new destinations that we would be adding land portions to which need more research and planning. Those we would book farther out.

The orange souffle is always my test soufflé for the cruise. If it’s a good tall one, I know they know how to do it, and I can safely order more soufflés through my cruise!

True. I’m 58 and I would love that. Much more than the boomer 70s music

I see. Makes sense.

Regardless of the numbers, my PVP posted the top deals of the week on her social media page and that sailing is on it. If you are really interested in it, there is a much better price available. The special price below actually comes up for me when I search this sailing, BUT you’re right, that it is over 2x the price to pick your own cabin.

Things may have changed. My TA forwarded the upsell email to me a few days ago, and the wording to the TA clearly says, “Enhance your clients cruise and increase your commission with this offer”. I thought it was too much and offered a reasonable counter. They declined. We are still almost 4 weeks to sail date so hopefully another one will come.

I agree plenty of the 30+ Marriott brands have microwaves. We always stay in Marriott brands to try and maintain our perks, and have stayed in these outside of the larger cities, but I haven’t seen one recently in a full service Marriott hotel (not a Fairfield, Residence inn, etc) that has restaurants and room service. It sounds like you’ve found some. They even seem to be taking out some of the desk areas with the new renovations. As long as they leave the coffee makers alone I’m happy! I don’t need popcorn, but I do need coffee.

We bid on (and won) on a 5 night cruise. It doesn’t matter what the length is.

My experience is that the more you pay, the less they provide, lol. I think they usually have a few that can be requested for special circumstances like heating up formula, etc.

Yes, you’ll have a production show. Often it will be on the dressy night which will be the sea day. We don’t usually get off the ship in Ensenada, but there is quite a large pedestrian area at the port. We were there on a holiday weekend once and there seemed to be family events going on.

Any hotel above a 3 star would be considered “Full Service” and won’t have microwaves in the rooms. You won’t walk down the hall of a Fairmont or even an Marriott and smell food being microwaved. Only the Hampton Inn type places, Courtyards, suite hotels, down to lower budget hotels will have them. I would think HAL considers themselves Full Service.

It started to work for me about 2 hours after I posted, so hopefully all is well now. Oh, and I use the term “work” loosely, meaning it is operating with all the usual glitches.

Is anyone else having problems? I can’t log in with either of our accounts and if I try to look at a cruise itinerary it doesn’t load.

This restriction must be new for British Columbia. We bought it for our first post Covid cruise in January 2022 and Quebec was the only Canadian restriction at that time.

Enjoying your trip report. We were on the Crown in June and really enjoyed her. I also thought we were the only ones who spent our evenings watching Love Boat episodes! Who knew?

Agree with this completely. This would be my deciding factor.