rodndonna

Just because they know the itinerary I don't think they know well in advance if there will be a big Covid outbreak, or a big Noro outbreak ...They don't have a crystal ball...

Can't run a transatlantic cruise with sick crew - I expect this was a difficult decision for the Captain to make and was required to protect the crew.

Not sure when the cruise was released as it wasn't something we were looking into before we booked it (almost an impulse purchase). Another poster mentions booking in June for Oct 23 TA, so likely our Med cruise end of September 23 was also released in June (so likely missed the deadline). We did get OBC ($150 instead of the $200 on that offer) as part of the 'sale' which is on currently on, so at least we got something for being early birds. 🙂 I will have to keep an eye out in the future though. Was not a bonus I was really aware of.

What is a Mariner Society member? If I have a "Mariner" number (and a am a lowly 2 star) am I one? Just booked a fall 2023 last week, would be nice if it applied to that one.

Did you get an email for that one? I discovered (by luck) that for the last week, when I carry through a booking the price to selecting a room the price discounted by about 30% (being Canadian I thought perhaps it was a mistake and I was getting my pricing at par or something). When I booked a cruise at the disocunt, "Casino discount applied" was in the booking summary. I never received an email (even though I received them in the past), and had I not mock booked a few cruises, I would have never know. I still don't know which cruises other than to trial and error through bookings.

Editing my response: Thinking about our booked HAL cruise in Sept 2023, it is a 'little' like that - on our 12 days we have 3 overnights. One at the start (overnight in Venice) and at the end (overnight in Athens) and one during the cruise (overnight in Istanbul). The start and end overnights can be viewed as 2 days in port, but in our case are being used as "we can still have time to visit that port without taking a hotel" since we are flying. The Istanbul port is the only port during that cruise I would want an overnighter, so that seems to work for us having 'some' of the cruise be overnighters.

Our first ocean cruise many years ago was a 7 day west med cruise NCL out of Barcelona (with the typical popular ports Rome, Florence, Naples ..) On it, we heard of a few who were repeating it (back to back for 14 days). I thought it was odd initially but then as the cruise went on that week I realized they were onto something. It was essentially a 14 day cruise with 2 days at each port. Not sure if they got a good deal doing the 2 back to back that way.

No, it's not like some other cruise lines where you can pick an itinerary and then get a quote for the airfare. 😒 If you a google flights you can get a good idea of what flights 'should' come in around though.

Princess has a 10 day Mexican "eclipse' cruise, there seems to be a slight premium for that sailing but not bad. I expect HAL to be similar in pricing with premium, but not crazy.

Do you see them at the start, or do you have to continue through the booking? When I search I see a price, and then if I follow through and get to selecting a room, sometimes the price is then discounted from what was displayed. In my case (a recent booking) it says "Casino discount applied" so mine appears to be a Casino discount, but I have to start a mock booking to get it.

Same here. From Toronto, it's much easier finding deals and options on flights to Europe than to California.

I think so as well. When I go through the booking - I get it at $1159 CAN pp and I think that is a "Casino discount" from the posted $1449 CAN.

Yes - they are a very large global company, and HOPEFULLY they are have marketing folks who focus on more than one just port (where they just so happen to live)

We owned a small business for a couple of years many years ago, and before we started someone advised us "think hard before you decide to put in a suggestion box". She was so right, even without one, the amount spent having to explain to people why their unsolicited idea was not workable was unending. For alot of customers, If you ask for ideas or preferences (or they just call you up and tell you them) and then they don't see them, the thought is "Clearly they didn't listen" ...

On our cruise a couple of weeks ago, we asked the stewart for just morning service and no turn down and only replace towels on the floor. Worked out well, and he did still deliver programs or notices in the evening (bit did not leave towel animals or do anything else) We did get 'one' towel animal mid cruise and we placed him the back of the sofa (intact) with sunglasses and we didn't receive anymore after that.

We booked yesterday (with HIA) and it included crew appreciation, OBC and reduced deposit. Those 'extras" appear to be only at booking and only on select cruises. Only a guess, but maybe that is what HAL will do going forward - keep HIA consistent (Beverages, Wifi dining and shore excursion) and then have "add on's" as sale incentives for certain cruises at booking. Biggest Savings On 2023 Cruises Extended through October 12! Receive up to $300 Onboard Credit per stateroom, Crew Appreciation, and a 50% reduced deposit. Plus our best amenities - Signature Drink Package, Specialty Dining, Shore Excursions and Wi-Fi on select 2023 cruises.

We used gift cards on our last 2 cruises (June and Sept) and on both cruises the balance was refunded to the credit card we had on account (rather than back to the gift card). I thought it odd that would do that the first time but again last week on our cruise it was the same. Our card had about $750 left on it, and we were refunded back to out credit card the unused $350 within a few days of ending the cruise. I still think it very odd and would not be surprised if they change back to refunding to the gift card rather than credit card at some point.

You have to have a US VPN to get the US displayed price, but it will still revert to CAN$ when you login (since it knows we are Canadian). In the past, when I want to book in USD I have to call in to do it. But it's a problem I like - my booking went from best rate starting at CAN$2112 down to CAD$1688 after continuing through the booking to select a room type (which was the same as the USD price number - coincidence?) 😃 I went ahead and booked in case it is just a short-lived glitch or something.

Both - yes I know - yes - you can use them 😃

yes

So I have been attempting to use my Princess gift cards for a booking and decided to look into what exchange rate they are pricing at compared to HAL (since our dollar is dong pretty poorly). Surprisingly, I see Princess pricing at 0.75 Can to US and HAL at closer to 0.80 - so already I was thinking ..hmmm .. leaning to HAL again but I have those darn Princess cards to use! MUCH more oddly though, when I take any booking and see the Canadian price (which it defaults to at login), when I follow through the booking to select room type, the price number drops back to the US$ number, but it is still stated as Canadian dollars. At first I thought maybe it was a Casino discount I was unaware of, until I noticed the price was always the USD$ number . Not sure what's going on .. maybe just a very coincidentally priced discount ...but I couldn't resist and booked a 12 day med cruise next year for what I thought was a great price. Curious if any other Canadians are seeing something odd in their pricing.

In case you weren't aware, If you want to use the cards toward the fare, you can call and have your cruise rebooked into US$ and then you would be able to use the cards (the savings are hard to pass up). We did that on our first booking last year which was initially booked as CAD$. Since then, we only book in US$ so we can take advantage of the cards.

We've done 3 HAL cruises post Covid on 3 different ships one of which was Koningsdam in June (Alaska). The entertainment on the Koningsdam cruise paled greatly compared to our other 2 cruises. We chalked it up to illnesses within the entertainers on that cruise. Definitely didn't get the impression the vocalist at BB's was the regular (or at least had not been doing it long). Illnesses, maybe just hard to get top talent to take a 4-5? month stint on an Alaska itinerary, or just bad luck - who knows, but we have found the musical entertainment to be very inconsistent across our 3 cruises. We've chalked it up to things not quite being up to par yet.

The break even point is much less than 15, but if you are occasional (typically max at 2 maybe 3 drinks in a day) then not worth it. Even just being beer drinkers (the cheapest drink out there), the math for out last 7 day trip was simple - HIA (Have it all )package was $45/day = $315 minus $100 towards a shore excursion minus say $30 towards dining and minus WIFI (not sure what that costs so I'll say free $0) = $185 (ignoring WIFI benefit ) or $26.40/day for drinks. a $7.50 beer costs $8.85 with the 18% gratuity. So 3 beer is our breakeven point (or 2 beer and a specialty coffee or a 2 beer and a glass of wine....)

we've only 3 HAL cruises, all post Covid. One had just BB and 2 had both Rolling Stones and BB. The music in BB's varied across the 3 cruises was quite a bit, where one was just quite bad. It was Alaska and there was a lot of Covid that cruise, so hopefully that explains them doing "Sweet Caroline"? I think for Rolling Stones venue it is easier to get a more consistent quality in the bands, and there is more opportunity for crossover of music. A rock band can do a good job of "Mustang Sally", but as much as I like "Sweet Caroline" I just don't want to hear it in the BB lounge.