rodndonna

OK - I can't resist saying it..... "I'd start with decluttering the cats" It's a joke! - just a joke! (from a dog person)... I'm not serious !!!

That's odd. We've always had any balance due at end of cruise come back onto your card within a day or 2. Any chance there is an issue with the Card number they had on file for the refund? I would check with your bank also.

Others can chime in ..but in my limited experience it was about 2 weeks, 3 at the most before I had the final response from billing. It does take time to rectify and reconcile billing. I seem to recall that shore excursions are somewhat their own department (based in our last Princess cruise) so that adds a bit of delay in reconciliation as well. I trust fully you will be refunded, just maybe not be quick

For sure apartment dwelling would not work for everyone. Like most we had experience in less than desirable apartment situations before owning a home many years ago. We were lucky enough to secure our choice of unit pre-build, so a corner unit on ground floor with large outdoor wrap around terrace. Our neighbours on this floor (and much of the building) are empty nesters so it's pretty quiet.

Email billing services - Guest relations and general HAL line will not have access to your account information from a specific cruise. They help with on board spending billing issues. Onboardbilling@hollandamerica.com

Wow - that's quite a difference. Which TA cruise is that one?

I've only had my eye on one cruise for next year- and it seemed to be the same price as I recalled it being. Just checked on Cruiseplum and indeed - it is unchanged. May just pull the trigger 😊

OK - so did an online chat with HAL, and they said they can see 2 Mariner ID's for my husband (one is actually is Princess number). He then said he "merged" the two ID"s and to let Mariner Society know which ID we want use. Have sent an email to Mariner Society now to clarify what that means now in terms of our Princess ID. Not sure if we now should just haveone ID going forward or will we still have 2 ID;s which are just merged (I guess so HAL and Princess can share loyalty info?)

No - we've had it applied to all our cruises (including Europe and NE/Canada)

And if I am not mistaken, it is a ship that is priced accordingly by NCL (i.e. cheaper). It's never a surprise that an older (and cheaper) ship will be more run down. Also to be expected that a less expensive older ship during peak holiday summer season in Europe will be over crowded. I guess I wonder (admitting I never watched the video) is that really the itinerary to get the best feel for te Epic? I always want to get an idea of ... compared to what was paid for other ships in the same region at the same time with similar itineraries ... how good/bad was it?

Agree. All Youtube video's are to be taken with a grain of salt, but, Ben and David are ones we wrote off a long time ago. Their videos are of all of 2 categories - "It's awful!!" or "it's fantastic!!" - no balance of pros and cons. From a Youtube perspective generates better headlines and easier to produce. I haven't watched the video, but anyone can go on ANY cruise and make a video highlighting only all the faults (or only all the great things)

Were/are you a "Silver" in Princess ? Wondering if they just matched you over to a Princess equivalent or carried your Princess status over ...??

On our second round of major decluttering and downsizing we sold our house (coming out of Covid when the market for homes was nuts) and moved into a brand new apartment. It's been 3 years and I thought we would be drawn back to owing a home or condo at some point ... but not even remotely. We are on the young side of having made that kind of move, but have family experience with waiting "too long" to move and seeing that play out helped motivate our decision to be early.

Interesting. With my husband what is odd is now he is showing up as a "zero" star Mariner as opposed to being is 3*. It sounds like there is some alignment of the numbers happening.though odd they are doing it to one of us and not the other for this cruise.

We have (had) totally different Mariner and Princess numbers (our Princess numbers are newer so each are unique and do not have the "A" or "B" at the end) When we checked in for our upcoming cruise, my husbands Mariner number has been changed to now be his Princess number. Like the OP, his number in the Navigator app is still his original Mariner number, and says he has no cruises booked (although we are checked in for the one in 3 weeks assigned to his Princess number). We'll call or do the on-line chat with HAL tomorrow to clarify what is going on with his account(s).

Just resurrecting this thread to see if anyone else has had their Mariner number changed to be their Princess number. Oddly - my husband's Mariner number seems to have changed and is now showing as his Princess number for our upcoming HAL cruise in 3 weeks. My Mariner number on our booking remains unchanged. All our HAL and Princess bookings are for both of us, we myself (the unchanged) as the Primary passenger.

Are you sure you don't just have to pop by and be "tagged" after watching the video in your room? Is it really full traditional where you all shop up at the same time?

I didn't realize just sharing an order was an option. That makes more sense for us as well as we are not big eaters.

That works if you live driving distance to the port. As someone who has to fly for 100% of our cruise, I would counter that when you are required to fly and then booking flights last minute, it may just wipe out your savings on the cruise. 😏 In this case OP is from Florida it appears, and then guessing it might be a Florida departure so flights not an issue for them. A question regarding last minute NCL fares - Aren't NCL last minutes no longer "FAS" fares? I'm not that experienced with NCL, but I thought that was how they princed the last minutes as "Sail away" deals or something ??

I recall them being on the gangway at ports with potential for rain. For the OP looking for using one for shade, I don't think they have them available on the gangway for the sunny day ports. I have never used one the HAL umbrella's for shade, but, if you have a good UV umbrella I would still take that with you as the HAL umbrella's are standard rain umbrellas. They provide some sun protection - but it's not as good as UV umbrella (speaking from experience with UV umbrellas used when golfing)

Maybe there is hope for HAL and sailaway parties on occasion then 😀 We were on a HAL cruise once and out on deck where the sailaway was I guess happening. A HAL newbie near us asked .. "I thought there was supposed to be a sailaway party here?" - and I replied "Yeah ... this is it ..." 🙂

An out of the blue comment related to departing on Day 2... We have done this once with HAL last fall on a cruise out of Trieste. The sailaway party was surprising well attended and more surprisingly a lot of fun. We have done a few HAL cruises and have never really witnessed much of a sailaway parry (which is totally fine by us). However, this was very different and my theory was when you have a day 2 departure, most are well settled in on the ship by sailawy and more interested in joining a sailaway party. It was fun ... they were unable to keep up at the Aperol Spritz bar making table 😏

That is correct, As a Canadian, we mistakenly were sold/bought USD$ FCD's on our first HAL cruise and were unable to use them towards a Canadian fare booking. It can only be used against a fare in USD. Also, your first comment is correct. If the exchange is not favourable for your FCD, it just means your reduced deposit is a little more than a US deposit. It is still reduced from what you would pay normally for a deposit in your currency. It has no impact on how much you pay for your cruise.

For sure - the FCD level each currency pays is intended to just be vaguely equivalent to that $100 USD FCD. In then end - it is just a "deposit" and they (HAL) are just trying to equalize what we pay as a deposit without having to update against varying exchange rates. If our dollar is low, my deposit might be less, but it still inevitably costs me more for the full cruise payment 🙃

I was around.then. but too young to know/care in the timeframe you are likely referring to ..but we also had a brief resurgence in 2007-2008?? that I recall very well ..it was super exciting and quite a novelty to be worth more than USD. Like a lot of Canadians .. we bought a lot of USD to stockpile for travel during that timeframe ... but it is all long spent now 😐