Banditswife

When we purchased the have it all pkg, she allowed us to book our specialty dining & an excursion. It was my understanding that the shore ex credit was for 1 shore excursion, so we chose 1 that was close to the $100 limit. After doing this our booking showed that we used our dining credit & our itinerary shows our shore ex as being booked & pd for. Here is my confusion: Our booking still showed the $100 shore ex as still available. I just thought it hadn't been taken off yet. I wanted to pay for a 2nd shore ex, still keeping the original tour. It kept giving me an error, so I called the shore ex number & was told I still have the $100 credit. I explained I didn't want to lose the tour we booked originally, just wanted to purchase another 1. She said the original shore ex showed as being booked & paid, then allowed me to use the credit to book my 2nd shore ex (different port.) This 2nd tour was $49.95 & now our booking says we have a $50.05 shore ex credit. What am I missing? Or did the original rep make a mistake & forget to charge us for the $99.95 tour? When I look at our itinerary, it now shows our dining reservation & both shore excursions. I just don't want to get on the ship & have them deny 1 of our tours. And will we be allowed to use that $50.05 credit for another tour once we board the ship?

My husband lost his arm many years ago. He has a prosthetic, but does not use it. It would be fun to use his prosthesis to fool our cabin steward with. Did this many years ago on a CCL cruise. Left his fake hand holding a beer can in our cabin- our steward did get a kick out of it.

We are platinum on Carnival, 2 star on HAL. When we 1st sailed HAL, it was for the itinerary- one that Carnival didn't offer. We enjoyed the itinerary, but found HAL a bit dull & passengers a bit stuffy. But that was like 10 years ago. Fast forward to 2021- we got a great offer from HAL & tried HAL again. We had a great time & now have 2 more booked for later this year on HAL. Maybe we are just older now & enjoyed the more relaxing vibe of HAL. I felt the food was great, entertainment comparable to CCL. The only thing HAL lacked was the mini golf & water slides. We are 65+ couple, & while we enjoy the water park & mini golf, we do not need those to have a great time. The casinos on HAL or CCL are comparable. On our 2021 HAL cruise we met a bunch of similarly minded people & had an absolutely wonderful time. Will we sail Carnival again? Sure, we are more than 1/2 way to diamond on CCL & love the perks we get from our loyalty level. For those complaining about the kids on CCL, timing is a big deal on CCL. We don't sail when school is out or during spring break, nor do anything less than a 7 day.

I would love to see something like that. It would probably scare me at 1st, then I'd laugh. We are on N Statendam next month, maybe our cabin steward will be creative.

We used CVS pharmacy at no cost to us for a recent Canada cruise. You have to make appointment online, but tech will print out results while you wait & you are also able to access results in CVS's "my chart." This is not an in home test, but worked well for us. On another note- depending on where you are sailing to & length of cruise, HAL has eliminated the need for pre cruise covid tests if you are fully vaccinated. You might check with HAL to see if a test is required. We sail on Nov 26 to Caribbean & no test is required for us.

Ok, sorry, I must have you confused with someone else. I do appreciate all the info you share with this board. We've done 3 full transits. 2 with HAL & 1 with Carnival. Loved them all. Hope you enjoy yours next Oct.

Yes, I think they keep changing the name for gratuities. I might be mistaken, but in Oct of 2022 I think they called it crew incentive. At any rate, from this thread I have learned we can use our promotional credit to partially pay our "crew appreciation" or whatever they call it these days. Thank you for all the info you provide on these boards. I believe we sailed with you through the canal several years ago.

We are in a similar position. Carnival does allow you to use OBC prior to being onboard. But HAL does not, I have tried. I was also told OBC could not be used for crew incentive. I hope you are correct Crew News.

Thank you for update on this incident. Sounds like the tour company & HAL did well considering. I imagine HAL will give those 41 people some type of discount on a future Panama Canal cruise, since they didn't get that experience.

we've been on 4 cruises post pandemic- 31 days on Carnival & 21 days on HAL. Yes there are cut backs, but that is everywhere on land, sea & air. We had only sailed HAL 1x pre pandemic & did not really care for the slower climate, but gave HAL another try w/ an offer too good to pass up. Thoroughly enjoyed our 21 days on HAL last Oct. So much so that we booked 14 days on N Statendam for next month. I felt dining was better than our pre covid cruise- but maybe because I had missed cruising so much, I appreciated it more. Our 3 Carnival cruises were hit & miss- 1 was what I would call really bad in dining & entertainment. The other 2 were great. We are looking forward to sailing on N Statendam & making HAL our cruise line of choice.

Yes very interesting. Curious about how they are doing now. Wondering if they have figured out how to meet up with the ship yet. Hoping someone will come on here to gives us a positive end to this incident.

We stopped there last Oct of 2021 for 2 days in a row. I have no idea about weather though. I guess because they have to tender to island-- rough seas might make that unsafe, & there are few places to seek refuge if weather is really bad.

Be aware that on a reduced fare cruise, they can & do deny the OBC. This is one area where Carnival seems to be more lenient than HAL.

I only know what we paid (see post # 45) & what it covers.

Does the extra $10 cover crew incentive? If yes, that would be worth it. Our does cover drink gratuities.

I believe they were running a special. Their web pg said "have it all" for 1/2 price. It quoted regular price as $99 per person per day. We pd $1400 for 14 days, 2 passengers. We had no call the shore excursion telephone to get the $50 price. Another benefit was that we were allowed to book our specialty restaurants & shore excursions ahead of time.

We were debating this issue for our upcoming cruise. The HIA pkg for us was $50 per person per day & did not include crew incentive. We are not big drinkers & our bar bill on any given cruise never reaches the $50 per day amount. But when we considered it included: 1 specialty dinner, 1 shore ex, internet & up to 15 drinks per day, we think it is worth it. I appreciate the advice of asking for unopened waters & sodas for our cabin. We do enjoy the specialty coffee too. So a couple of those along with sodas, water & a few cocktails makes it worth it. IMO

Thank you, Crew News. Your bar menu is helpful, but hoping it isn't all inclusive. Didn't see any of my fruity type drinks on it. But your menu does give me an idea of what to expect.

A slightly different but related question. We bought the "have it all" pkg. Will we be allowed to purchase individual waters with this pkg?

We've been getting these offers & we've only sailed HAL 2x. The last offer was for a free OV guarantee. So we booked a B2B using these offers. Total cost for 14 days, 2pp was $1800. Offer includes $800 OBC & $800 casino credit. We do play in the casino, but are not big gamblers. Even though we booked for Nov/Dec of this year, we continue to get offers. Most are for inside cabins.

We are on 11/26 & Dec 3-10. We will be watching you keep those chair hogs in line-LOL looking forward to seeing you on board.

awesome, thanks

We get casino offers frequently from both HAL & Carnival. Hal's being the best offers so far. We are not big $ players, but do spend a great deal of time in the casino. Our last offer was for a free ocean view guarantee. We ended up paying about $950 total for ea cruise. We will get $400 OBC + casino credits. We also did a very reasonably priced 21 day last Oct on HAL. The offers are so good, they are difficult to turn down.

We are on N Statendam in Nov for a B2B, good tip. I am unfamiliar with this ship, would that be deck 10?

Thank you DaveOKC