Shmoo here

That's the problem in our house, my sons and husband don't like spending change, and just drop the change in a pocket when they buy stuff until they have a giant amount of it. I, on the other hand, will spend change, so I trade my bills for their coins. That means I always have a bulging wallet

Well, we also have the time to do that, but not the money. Hotel prices are crazy (from what I've seen) if you try to get one near to the port, or within a decent amount of travel time.

That's what we did. Our TA called back to HAL about a minute and a half after she hung up the call making the reservation and specifically asked about the Mariners OBC and they came back that our cruise didn't qualify. I don't know when the 90 days started for our cruise so I can't refute the answer.

Just booked our cruise today and we did get the early booking HIA, but was told our particular cruise was not one of the "select cruises" that qualify for the Mariner Early Booking bonus.

We flew from LA to Ft Lauderdale the day before our cruise. Arrived around 7-8 pm (can't recall, really). Took taxi to hotel about 3 blocks from port. Had a late dinner and to bed. Took hotel shuttle to port the next day.

The only issue I had with our DCL cruise checkin for our Feb cruise was that I learned the "photo does not meet guidelines" doesn't mean you can't continue. I just clicked "save" at that point and moved on. Also the "pending" doesn't typically clear until about 3 days prior to cruise. With the photo thing, it didn't like my husband's photo, so they just took another one at the port when we checked in.

Thanks, I'm in the middle of doing that. It looks like it wouldn't be better (cost-wise) to book separately.

We're interested in a long cruise and it has the Early booking HIA package available. Now I see that our cruise is actually 2 cruises booked as one cruise. Both of the shorter cruises have the Early Booking HIA available. Can we book the 2 shorter cruises and, basically, double the HIA value? Since the HIA package has a $300 Shore Excursion perk (per person), would we then get $300 on both legs of our B2B?

That's fine. I appreciate you trying. After talking to my husband, I think we're going to book soon. It's still available today, but the number of available rooms is quite small, from what I can see. Hope that doesn't mean it'll end within the next 2 days.

35 day voyage of the vikings July 2024. Out of Boston.

That's OK. Just trying to figure out how much time I have to make a reservation.

Where was that "small print"?

I'm going to hazard a guess - it's because Vantage uses KLM (not my favorite) for flights mostly. They're based in Amsterdam. And you can fly anywhere in Europe (practically) from Amsterdam.

OK, thanks.

Yes, it does. Thank you. Another question, how do I know with the "Early Booking" time ends?

Regarding the crew appreciation part. On the regular HIA it's not included, but on the early booking HIA it is. The details on the early booking HIA info says (bolding mine) "Gratuities for other services, including bar, dining room, wine accounts and spa/salon services are not included." On other cruiselines (maybe HAL, also?) the crew appreciation typically cover room host and dining service team. Is this not true on HAL? If not, how do I know how much the gratuity is for room host, vs dining servers?

Well, the processing is paid for by the fees, but the salaries of the people doing it will be affected. It has in the past.

Longest (to date) 28 night Hawaii/Tahiti. I'll preface it by saying we started out (our very first cruise ever) with a 15 night Panama Canal. While we have done a few 4 & 5 nighters, our preference for a "regular" cruise is 7-10 nights. About 1/2 our cruises have been 14 nights or more.

That's my point. When we book a cruise and select traditional dining, I don't have to "work with the DR mgmt" to get the same table/servers every night, it's already set up that way.

Holland America and Disney also seem to be able to manage it.

We've only cruised since 2008 and we've had traditional dining on every cruise. Most of those ships had more than one dining room. There seemed to be plenty of people sharing the dining room with us during those meals. I can't believe that we're the only people who prefer it.

So we have to do more work for our cruise than in the past. I loved traditional dining because it was already set up, and I didn't have to make sure I had a reservation set up every day. That and the shared table. Do you still share with others? And would they be the same people every night? I'm thinking - not. I'm not fond of meeting new people every day. It's enough of a challenge for my brain to remember the names of the 4-6 people we sit with the first night. Not to mention, having to tell my service team EVERY NIGHT what I want to drink, when I want that drink, and them knowing what my likes/dislikes are.

Well, that's a bummer.

OK, thanks. It sounded like that wasn't an option any more.

Are you saying you don't get the same servers every night? It's be a while since we were on Princess, but we've always had the same servers for dinner every night.